


Where There's a Will

by writerbot5000



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, F/F, Lena Luthor Knows Kara Danvers Is Supergirl, Light Angst, Multi, Not nearly as much angst as you would expect given the circumstances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-03-05 00:59:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 50,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13376775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writerbot5000/pseuds/writerbot5000
Summary: After Lena realizes that the supervillian that just put her girlfriend in a coma is none other than her other girlfriend, she struggles to find a way to save Kara, save Sam and save their little family.





	1. Security Problems

**Author's Note:**

> This idea came to me shortly after 3x09 and demanded I write it. It is mostly canon-compliant up to 3x09 (with a few key changes, obviously) but it should be diverging very heavily from that point forward. 
> 
> It's not necessary to understand the story but in the end notes there is a brief timeline of the major events that happened differently in this universe (starting with 2x15 through 3x09). Anything vital to the story will be covered within the story itself but you can still check out the timeline if you are so interested.

Lena looked on in horror as Kara was dropped from the top of the building. Lena waited for Kara’s flight to kick in but she just kept falling until she crashed into the pavement below.

The instant Supergirl hit the ground, Lena tried to run to her side. She was stopped fast by a circle of government agents. She struggled against them, desperate to reach her fallen girlfriend but to them she was just another random bystander. They weren’t about to let her through no matter how much she pleaded.

Through the throngs of agents, Lena was surprised to get a glimpse of Alex at Supergirl’s side. The FBI thing must be a cover. It made sense though. If anyone was going to fight be Kara’s side, it would be her sister. Lena didn’t have time to dwell on this latest revelation as she was too worried about Kara. She still hadn’t moved and from what she could see of Alex frantically checking on her sister, it was clear that something was very wrong.

Lena called out to Alex as Kara was placed on a stretcher and taken towards a waiting van, but whether she was too far away to be heard, or if Alex was just too focused on her sister to pay heed to anything else, Alex didn’t react to Lena’s calls. Lena had no choice but to watch helplessly as Kara’s battered body was loaded in to the back of the van and the van drove out of sight.

Lena tried calling Alex’s cellphone, but she wasn’t surprised when it went directly to voicemail. She tried calling Maggie, Winn, and even James. Anyone who she thought might be able to give her answers but nobody was answering.

The CEO was unsure of what to do when she remembered an address Kara had given her to use if there was ever an emergency and Kara wasn’t around. This definitely qualified as an emergency.

Lena placed another call, this time to her driver, and within minutes she was on the way to the mysterious address. Well, to just around the corner from the mysterious address. Edgar had been one of her driver’s for years, and she trusted him, but she figured that she probably shouldn’t be tipping anyone else off to the location of what had to be some sort of secret government building. It had to be run by the same agents that had just loaded Supergirl into their van and driven off and they probably weren’t keen on visitors. Lena wasn’t sure how she herself was going to get inside the building to see Kara but she figured she would deal with that particular problem once she got there.

Lena had to double-check the address when she arrived. It looked like an ordinary office building, nothing really made it stand out from the other seven office buildings on the block. Maybe that was on purpose, she supposed. If it looked more secure or secretive than a random office building, that might draw more attention than they would like.  
As Lena marched through the front door, she was surprised to see Detective Sawyer talking with someone at the front desk.

“I’m sorry, Detective,” the security guard was saying. “I know that you are the DEO’s official liaison with the NCPD but we are currently under a level 5 security lockdown. During a level 5 lockdown, only DEO personnel with clearance level Alpha or above are allowed beyond this point. I can’t let you enter.”

“Listen, Richard,” Maggie practically growled, leaning over the desk to get in the face of the beleaguered guard, “My wife is in there and she needs me. So I don’t care about your lockdown or what your standard procedure is, you are going to let me enter this building. If you don’t let me in, you are going to have to deal with one angry police officer and one very angry Alex Danvers.”

Judging from how pale the man’s face had grown it looked like he was about to say to hell with procedure and let Maggie pass. Unfortunately at that moment a half-dozen additional security guards appeared, presumably drawn by all the yelling.

“I’m afraid we are going to have to ask you to leave now, ma’am” the lead guard said, clamping her hand on the detective’s shoulder. “Either remove yourself from the premises immediately or we will have no choice but to arrest you.”

For a second it looked like Maggie might just try to take on a roomful of armed security guards single-handedly, but from the way her posture sagged in defeat, it was clear that Maggie had decided that there was no way she could beat those odds.

A part of Lena wondered if she should try to take advantage of the guards’ distraction and sneak in herself (if they hadn’t let Maggie in, there was no way they would let Lena in. Maggie apparently was allowed to be there at least some of the time; Lena, on the other hand, had no standing with the this DEO (she didn’t even know what DEO stood for). And thanks to her last name, it was entirely possible they would have her on some sort of watch list). It might actually be her best shot at getting inside. But Maggie was probably just as anxious to get inside as Lena was. She couldn’t just take advantage of the woman to get herself past security.

Unwilling to abandon her friend, Lena followed Maggie and the guards as they exited in the building. The guards had clearly seen Lena (though fortunately hadn’t bother to actually give her any attention) but it wasn’t until Lena and Maggie were standing on the steps to the building that the other woman realized that Lena was there.

“Lena!” Maggie gasped. “I didn’t see you there.” Her brow furrowed, “Wait, what are you doing here? How do you even know that here is here?”

“I had to see her,” Lena responded.

Realization dawned on the detective’s face. “You know, don’t you? About Kara?”

“Of course, I know,” Lena admitted. “Kara told me to come to this building if I was ever in danger and I couldn’t find her. I figured that it’s a pretty safe bet that’s where they would take her in a situation like this. And since you are here too, I’m guessing I guessed correctly.”

“Yeah, she should be there. But unfortunately there is a whole bunch of DEO agents between us and our girls and apparently guests aren’t exactly welcome right now. Alex would let us in but her phone is going straight to voicemail. I tried Winn’s phone too and he’s not answering either.”

Lena sighed, “Yeah, I tried them both too. And you, actually.”

Maggie checked her phone, “Oh shit, sorry, Lena. I totally missed it.”

Lena waved off the woman’s apology. “Don’t worry about it. Do you have any other way to contact Alex? A secret ring or something?”

“A communicator ring?” Maggie scoffed. “You’ve been watching too many spy movies, Little Luthor. When my wife and I want to speak, we use cellphones just like everyone else.”

“Okay, but surely you must have an emergency number you can call or something? Alex is a government agent and you’re a police detective. Sam set one up for Ruby, Kara and myself and she doesn’t even know that Kara’s Supergirl.”

Mentioning Sam made Lena realize she had another problem. What was she going to tell Sam and Ruby? She was almost certain that they had no idea that Kara was Supergirl. What was she going to tell them when they started wondering where Kara was? It didn’t seem right to not let them know what had happened to Kara, but how could she possibly tell them without giving away the Kara’s alter ego. That was Kara’s secret; it wasn’t Lena’s to tell.

“An emergency number?” Maggie’s question pulled Lena from her thoughts.

“Yeah,” Lena explained. “We all have an app on our phones that lets us call each other at any time. At least as long as our phones are on and have a signal. It’s set up to ring with a unique tone, and it’ll ring even if the phone is on vibrate, set to silent, set to Do Not Disturb, or anything like that. We use it if there’s an emergency and we need to get in touch with each other.”

Maggie looked puzzled. “Why would Sam think you needed something like that if she didn’t know about the whole Supergirl thing?”

“You may not have noticed, detective, but National City is an awfully dangerous place to live. It seems like just about every week we’re dealing with an alien invasion, a CADMUS attack or some other nonsense. And that’s not even getting into the fact that people have a tendency to try and kill or kidnap me on a depressingly regular basis. Plenty of reasons why our girlfriend might want a way to reach us no matter what.”

“Okay, you have convinced me,” Maggie answered, holding her hands up in mock surrender. “When this is over, we can figure out some new system so we don’t run into these problems. But that doesn’t help us right now. I guess we can just stand out here and wait until we see Winn or Alex or someone else that will let us in.” Maggie sighed, visibly frustrated.

“Oh, we are still getting in there,” Lena countered.

“We are?” Maggie asked.

“We are,” Lena nodded. “I was hoping maybe you had a way to reach Alex and we could have done it the easy way. But one way or another, we are going to get in to that building.” Lena was not about to leave Kara alone. Not when Kara was injured or worse. She didn’t care what she had to do.

Maggie looked over at the guards that were still visibly milling about within the lobby. “I’m game, little Luthor, but I’m not quite sure how we are going to manage it. I know you are pretty scrappy but those are trained government agents in there.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Lena stated, with considerably more confidence than she felt. She wasn’t entirely sure that her plan would work but she knew she had to try. She had to see Kara and make sure she was okay. “We’ll just need to grab a few things from my office first.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the timeline I promised. It covers a few things that may not turn up in the story (like why Mon-El isn't around in this version of events), but you may be wondering about. 
> 
> Season 2 (2x15 - 2x22)
> 
> When Supergirl rescued Lena from the fall off the L-Corp balcony in 2x15, Lena finally put the pieces together and realized that Kara and Supergirl were one and the same. She lets Kara believe she has no idea.
> 
> After Kara finds out that Mon-El has been lying to her about his origins and breaks up with him in 2x16, it’s not somehow her fault that he lied to her so she has a different musical journey that re-affirms her decision and they don’t get back together in the Flash crossover episode. 
> 
> When Mon-El’s parents show up, he realizes that if he’s serious about becoming a true hero, the best thing he can do is help fix the problems his family created on Daxam and so he agrees to go back so he can try and make Daxam a better place (eventually leading to a revolution and the overthrow of the monarchy).
> 
> Kara finally gets the courage to ask Lena out on a date just before the events of 2x18 so things with Jack play out a bit differently (as there is no consideration of Lena renewing her relationship with Jack) but mostly play out the same.
> 
> With no big alien invasion to finish off season 2, instead there’s a CADMUS plot of some sort. It’s all very dramatic and exciting and Alex and Maggie get engaged again. 
> 
> Between Season 2 and 3
> 
> Since Kara never had to send Mon-El away to an uncertain fate, she doesn’t go all emo highschool drama during the off-season. 
> 
> Lena and Kara never have the Supergirl talk but it’s basically an open secret between the two of them.  
> Lena asks Kara to move in with her. 
> 
> Lena’s old friend, Sam, starts her new job as CFO of L-Corp.
> 
> Kara is at first jealous of Sam and Lena’s closeness but she gets over it as the three of them start spending a lot of time together. 
> 
> Also, Alex and Maggie don’t wait until they have been engaged for six months for one of them to mention their thoughts on having children. Alex wants to have kids and Maggie doesn’t and so it’s something they will have to talk about in the future but after minimal angst they realize that kids or no, they want to stay together. 
> 
> Season 3 (3x01 - 3x09)
> 
> After the second time Kara, Lena and Sam are drinking and end up in bed together, they realize that maybe they aren’t just friends. Lena and Kara invite Sam into their relationship. It goes very well. Kara and Lena still have their own place, but the three of them and Ruby are well on their way to forming their own little family.
> 
> Other than Kara, Lena and Sam dating, 3x01 through 3x09 plays out basically the same with a few notable exceptions:  
> 1) Mon-El never went to the future so he and his companions never ended up back in the past.  
> 2) Lena and James do start forming a tentative friendship, but there’s no romantic interest on either side (Lena’s quite happy with her current partners and James isn’t going to try and date someone who is in a committed relationship. Sam and Kara also don’t try and encourage Lena and James to get together for obvious reasons).  
> 3) Maggie and Alex get married. And it’s super adorable. 
> 
> You can probably guess how everything else played out but if you have any specific questions on things that may have been impacted by this AU, please let me know!


	2. Time to be Stealthy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously on Where There's a Will:
> 
>  
> 
> Kara was left badly injured after her run-in with Reign.  
> Lena and Maggie both tried to get in to the DEO to see Kara and Alex, but were rebuffed because the building is under a high security lockdown.  
> Fortunately, Lena has a plan to get them in.

Lena called her driver back and the two women made their way to Lena’s office. At this time of night on Christmas Eve, there was very little traffic so it only took a few minutes to get across town and in to Lena’s office.

Once they arrived at the office, Lena slid open a hidden panel on the wall and pushed a few buttons. Another panel slid open revealing a safe, which Lena then used her palm print to open.

Reaching in to the safe, Lena pulled out a length of black fabric.

“I don’t think just dressing all in black is going to be enough to get us in,” Maggie commented.

“This isn’t an outfit,” Lena answered. “It’s more of an… invisibility cloak.”

“An invisibility cloak?” Maggie gasped. “That’s your plan?” Maggie eyed the fabric Lena held out in front of her with considerable skepticism. “We just throw on an invisible cloak and then we mosey on in?”

“Well…” Lena hesitated, “We won’t be able to ‘mosey’ exactly.” At the detective’s harsh look, Lena continued. “It’s— It’s— Well, it’s kind of a prototype.”

“So does it even work?”

“Of course, it works. Mostly.”

“I have to say ‘mostly’ isn’t exactly inspiring confidence here, Lena.”

“It definitely works,” Lena attempted to assuage, “But we’ve been struggling with the battery life. You see, it takes an awful lot of energy to calculate and project a perfect video image of what the viewer should be seeing. The battery life is rather limited.”

“How limited are we talking about exactly?” Maggie probed.

“We made some enhancement to the latest prototype. By my estimation, we should have at least 45 seconds before the power fails.”

“45 seconds? That will be barely enough time to get in the building.”

“I admit it’s a bit of a time crunch, but it should give us enough time to get past the guards at the front door,” Lena countered. “The guard said that only DEO agents with high level clearances are allowed in the base right now. I’m guessing that means there aren’t really going to be that many people just wandering around. So once we are inside, it shouldn’t be that hard to find a way to get to Kara without being spotted. I’m assuming they must have some sort of medical bay or infirmary where they would bring her?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I know where she and Alex will be,” Maggie agreed, before turning to face Lena. “Look, I want nothing more than to be there for our girls right now, but you do realize that even if we do manage to make it to the infirmary, we are going to get spotted sooner or later right? There isn’t exactly anywhere we can hide in the infirmary itself. And they definitely won’t just escort us out this time. If we get caught roaming around in a top-secret government facility, they will arrest us.”

Lena was aware of the risk. If they were spotted coming in, they were almost certainly going to end up a holding cell. Lena was pretty sure that between Alex and Kara, the DEO wouldn’t be able to keep them locked up for too long, but with everything going on, it could be a while before Alex would even know what had happened with them.

“You said Alex would let you in if she knew you were trying to get in, right? Do you think she’ll do the same for me?”

“Alex really likes you…” Maggie hesitated.

“I’m sensing a but,” Lena sighed.

“I’m sorry. You know how protective she is of Kara. She’s even more protective of Kara’s secret identity. So having anyone else learn Kara is Supergirl is going to worry her. But,” the detective shrugged, “she does really like you. And she’s mentioned more than once how glad she is to see Kara so happy with you and Sam. If I were a betting woman, which I totally am, I would say she’ll let you stay too, but I can’t promise you anything.”

“Then I guess it’s a good thing I trust your gambling instincts,” Lena joked. “But even if I knew for sure this was going to end with me stuck in a holding cell, it’d be worth for a chance to see Kara. I have to know how if she’s okay. I can’t just sit here and wait” Lena was determined.

“Don’t worry,” Maggie added, pulling Lena into a brief hug. “If Alex does try to keep you in a holding cell, I’ll just threaten to withhold sex for a week.

“As if you could go that long without Alex,” Lena laughed.

“Well, hopefully she doesn’t know that,” Maggie quipped. “Now, let’s do this.

* * *

Lena had her driver stick around while they had been in her office so the trip back to the DEO was even quicker than the trip to her office had been.

On their arrival, Lena let her driver know that he was free to go spend Christmas with his family. Lena figured that whichever way this break-in attempt went, she wouldn’t be needing a driver again until at least tomorrow.

The detective and the CEO got as close to the entrance of the building as they could without being visible from the glass walls of the lobby. Once they were in place, they wrapped themselves in the cloak.

Lena had been a little worried that her prototype invisibility cloak wouldn’t work properly. She hadn’t mentioned it to Maggie, but all of their testing had been done with a single user. They hadn’t tried using it with anything as large as two people. The cloak was more than large enough to cover both of them, but Lena worried that the added surface area would cause inconsistencies in the cloak or perhaps drain the battery more quickly than she had anticipated. Fortunately, when the two women slipped under the cloak just outside the office doors and Lena used her phone to activate the invisibility, it worked exactly as expected.

“Okay, go,” Lena whispered to Maggie.

Once they were close enough the automated doors slid opened. In the time it took for them to get to Lena’s office and return, the other guards had left and only the solitary guard that had blocked Maggie’s first attempt to enter the building remained on duty. The man appeared to be thoroughly engrossed in some game he was playing on his phone though and he didn’t even react to the door had opening.

It turns out that moving quickly while having to hold on to another person while both of you are wrapped in what is essentially a giant blanket isn’t the easiest of tasks. Twice Lena stumbled and nearly tripped over the bottom of the cloak, but fortunately both times Maggie was able to steady her before she fell over.

Despite the stumbles, they made it past the front desk and around the corner before the warning light started flashing on her phone indicating that the cloak was losing power.

Seeing that there were no guards in the dimly lit hallway they now found themselves in, Lena removed the cloak. “There,” Lena said quietly, folding the cloak back up into a surprisingly compact form and sliding it in her bag, “That wasn’t so tough. And the cloak even stayed powered for 49 seconds. 4 seconds longer than I estimated. So now we just need to find Kara.”

“Not a problem,” Maggie whispered, already cautiously making her way forward. “We just need to go down this hallway, turn right and then it should be the third door on our left. Should be a piece of—”

Lena never found out what it should be a piece of because at that very moment a loud alarm began to ring and a red light began to flash. “Damn it!” Maggie shouted. The woman grabbed Lena’s hand and began running forwards, “Come on!”

Despite how often her life had been imperiled since moving to National City, running still wasn’t Lena’s strong suit but she did her best. She was so close to getting to Kara. If they hurried maybe Lena could at least get a look at her girlfriend before security descended on them and chucked them into a holding cell.

They made it to the end of the hall around the corner without incident, but when they rounded the corner, they were  just in time to see some sort of barricade, made out of what looked to be transparent aluminum, finish sliding to the floor. “Okay, new route,” Maggie cried, pulling Lena’s arm again, this time back the way they had come. “If we take the second door on the right we should be able to cut through the training area and still make it to the infirmary.”

Leave it to Maggie to not let a little thing like an alarm, sealing doors and, Lena supposed, a whole bunch of DEO agents about to find them at any second to stop her. Realizing it was probably hopeless, Lena kept on running with Maggie. Unfortunately, by the time they made it back around the corner, there was another sealed door in front of them. They were trapped.

Darting her eyes around, Lena looked for any sort of security panel. If she could find an unsecured terminal, she might be able to override the door locks and they could make their escape.

Suddenly the blaring of the alarm was joined by a hissing noise. “Oh, come on!” Maggie groaned. “Gas? That’s so not fair.”

Looking up, Lena saw that Maggie was right, a white gas was billowing out of the ceiling from multiple vents and pouring down to the floor.

“I don’t suppose you’ve got a couple of gas masks in that bag of yours,” Maggie asked, already beginning to cough from the gas.

“Afraid not,” Lena responded. She pulled a handkerchief in front of her face to try and filter out the gas though she doubted it would help. Lena rooted through her bag, looking for anything that might help, or at least a second handkerchief to give Maggie, but it was too late. Her vision was getting blurry and it was getting hard to stay on her feet.

Within seconds, both women collapsed to the floor and lost consciousness.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun dun dun!
> 
> Next time we'll find get our first appearance of Kara in this story (well, other than her little plummet at the very start of the story). Plus other things will happen!


	3. Secrets Revealed?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously on Where There's a Will:
> 
> Since they couldn't get in to see Kara and Alex, Lena and Maggie came up with a plan to sneak into the DEO using an invisibility cloak. Unfortunately for them, it turns out that isn't that easy to sneak into a highly secure facility and they ended up being trapped and knocked out by some gas.

Yelling. So much yelling. Lena blearily opened her eyes. Who was yelling? Why was there yelling? Rolling over in an attempt to go back to sleep, Lena fall off the bed with a thud and landed on a hard concrete floor.  
  
What the hell was going on? This definitely wasn’t her and Kara’s bedroom. Or Sam’s. Wait, had she been kidnapped again?  
  
Raising her head off the floor, Lena attempted to look towards the source of the yelling. Maybe that would give her a clue of what was going. The light was really bright though and Lena was only able to squint bleary-eyed at the two amorphous shapes that were the source of the yelling.  
  
The smaller blob was pushing against the larger blob and yelling. Lena struggled to focus on what was being said as the larger blob started to respond. “It’s standard protocol when there is an unauthorized entry.”  
  
“Standard protocol?” the smaller blob, which as Lena’s grogginess was starting to clear, she realized was actually  Alex Danvers. “It’s standard protocol to use gas on my wife and my sister’s girlfriend and toss them in a holding cell for hours and not even notify me?”  
  
“They just appeared out of nowhere, ma’am.” As her vision continued to clear Lena recognized the guard who had kicked Maggie out of the building on her first visit. “We had no way to be sure who they really were or how they got there. It’s standard protocol to isolate and incapacitate any possible hostiles.”  
  
“And nobody thought to come tell me that you had just knocked my wife out and taken her prisoner?”  
  
“We told you that the intruders had been detained,” Agent Sheppard retorted.  
  
“And you didn’t think to mention who they were?”  
  
“Any chance we can take these off? Or, if not, at least give me and my wife a private room?” Lena looked over and saw Maggie was now awake as well, lying on her back and holding her arms up in the air indicating the handcuffs she was sporting. It wasn’t until she saw the cuffs that Lena realized her own hands were bound together as well as she lay on a heap on the floor.  
  
“That’s what I was just discussing with Agent Sheppard,” Alex responded, her face softening momentarily as she looked at the woman before turning back to the other agent.  
  
“Agent Danvers, regardless of who the prisoners are, they breached DEO security. That is a federal offense. We can’t just let them go.”  
  
“With J’onn in Washington, DC, I’m the ranking agent on this base. And I say I’m not going to lock up my wife and my sister’s girlfriend because they were worried about my sister and I.”  
  
“But—”  
  
“You are dismissed, agent.” Alex cutting off the other agent’s objections with a glare.  
  
Whether it was the glare or if Agent Danvers outranked Agent Sheppard, Lena wasn’t sure. But for whichever reason, the other woman backed down and left without further argument.  
  
Once the woman left, Alex walked over to a console and pushed a few buttons and the door to their cell opened.  
  
As Alex unlocked the cuffs that bound Maggie’s wrists, Lena struggled to get to her feet. She soon realized that it was no easy task when your hands are cuffed together. After a few seconds of struggling, she was pulled gently to her feet. “Thanks, Alex.”  
  
“Yeah, Agent Sheppard is kinda of scary,” Maggie added. “I’m glad you had our back.”  
  
“I’m always going to have your back,” Alex assured before her face went scary again. “But what I would really like to know is how the hell you two broke into a secure government facility?”  
  
“I’ll take responsibility for that,” Lena answered. “When I saw that the guards wouldn’t let Detective Sawyer into the building, I offered to assist her with some L-Corp technology.”     
  
“She has a freakin’ invisibility cloak!” Maggie chimed in. “It was awesome! You should have seen it! Well, not seen it, I guess. It is invisible.”  
  
Alex sighed, shaking her head. “An invisibility cloak? And so you figured, what you would throw on a cloak and just walk right in to a top-secret government facility?”  
  
“I tried going in the proper way, but they wouldn’t let me in,” Maggie countered.    
  
“Wait, what?” Alex asked. “Why wouldn’t they let you in?”  
  
“Something about a level 5 lockdown.”  
  
“You have alpha clearance! That stupid—” Alex paused, visibly pulling herself together. “No, I’ll get mad at Richards later. Right now, I’m mad at you two!” The agent jabbed her finger, pointing first at Maggie and then at Lena.  
  
“I’m sure you thought you were being all clever with your little magic cloak, but what did you think was going to happen when you took off that cloak?” Alex began pacing the room as she ranted. “The security cameras picked you up instantly. I can’t really blame security for freaking out when two people suddenly appear out of nowhere. Not with all the attacks we’ve had over the years.”  
  
“And how the hell do you even know where here is?” Alex directed at Lena. “Did you tell her?” Alex’s gaze swiveled back to Maggie.  
  
“It’s not her fault,” Lena jumped in. “Kara told me to come here if there was ever an emergency and I couldn’t reach her.”  
  
“Kara gave you this address?” Alex asked, incredulous. “That woman cannot keep a secret. J’onn is going to be pissed!”  
  
“Is she okay?” Lena asked.  
  
“Uh, of course, she’s okay.” Alex stammered, apparently still trying to maintain the ruse that Kara and Supergirl weren’t one and the same. “She probably just— uh, lost her phone! Yeah, she lost her phone. And that’s why you couldn’t reach her.”  
  
Lena appreciated that Alex was still trying to protect her little sister, but she didn’t have time for it right now. “Alex, it’s okay. I know. I know that Kara is Supergirl.”  
  
For a moment it looked like Alex was still going to try and keep up the charade, but she just sighed. “So she finally told you?”  
  
“In a manner of speaking,” Lena agreed. “Right now though, I just want to know if she’s okay. I was there, on the street. When Kara fought that woman. I saw her fall. Is she okay?”  
  
“She’s— she’s alive,” Alex answered, her voice soft. “It was close though. Her heart, it stopped twice, once in the DEO van and a second time just after we got her to the infirmary.  
Thank god, we were able to revive her both times.” As Alex started to choke up, Maggie rushed over and took her into her arms. Nobody said anything for a moment as the two women just held each other.  
  
“But she’s okay now, right?” Lena asked, needing to know more.  
  
“Um,” Alex stammered, wiping her eyes. “Mostly. She’s stable now. And we’ve got her under the sun lamps, but—”  
  
“But what?” At Alex's hesitation, she continued. "Tell me. Please"  
  
“She’s in a coma, Lena.” Alex answered. “We aren’t sure when she’s going to wake up.”  
  
Knowing that Kara was still alive was something, but hearing that she had almost lost her, that her heart had stopped, and that she was in a coma wasn’t exactly a relief. She and Kara had just spent the afternoon doing some last minute Christmas shopping. She couldn’t be in a coma. “Can I see her?”  
  
“Of course,” Alex answered. “I know what I said earlier, but I’m glad you are here. She would want you to be here. I just wish you guys had figured out a way to get into the building without quite so many security alarms.”  
  
Maggie gave her wife a quick side-hug. “The important thing is we’re here now.”  
  
The three women made their way from the holding cells to the infirmary. Before opening the door to the infirmary, Alex turned to Lena, “You might want to prepare yourself. It looks pretty bad.”  
  
“I appreciate the warning, but I don’t really know if there is a way to prepare for something like this. Can we just go in?”  
  
“Sure,” Alex answered with understanding. She tapped a few buttons on a panel and the door slid open.  
  
Lena was right. There was no way to prepare for something like this. Kara was lying on a bed. There were tubes and wires everywhere. Her wounds had been cleaned but she had multiple cuts on her face, head and arms and her skin was unnaturally pale, particularly under the harsh, bright light of the sun lamps.  
  
Lena had never seen Kara when she wasn’t practically glowing with life, but now she was so still and so pale that if it wasn’t for the heart monitor beeping away at her bedside, Lena might have thought her girlfriend had succumbed to her injuries.  
  
“How bad is it?” Lena asked, struggling to keep her voice steady.  
  
“It’s bad,” Alex quietly, looking down at her sister, “She’s got three broken ribs, a concussion, and orbital socket fracture and a ruptured spleen. And she’s in a coma.” Alex paused for a moment, reaching down and gently touch Kara’s face. “She will be okay though. One benefit of Kryptonian physiology, as long as she isn’t killed outright, and she’s kept away from Kryptonite, she can recover from pretty much anything. I’m just not sure how long it will take this time.”  
  
“She’s been like this before?” Lena asked, not sure if she really wanted to know the answer.  
  
Shaking her head, Alex answered, “Nothing quite like this. But I’ve watched over her bedside far more times these past three years than I would like.”  
  
The three women took up seats around Kara’s bedside. Lena sat and held Kara’s hand while Maggie and Alex did their best to cuddle together on their own chairs.  
  
After a few moments, Alex interrupted their silence. “I’m curious about something. When I asked you if Kara told you she was Supergirl, you said she had in a manner of speaking. What did you mean by that?”  
  
“I actually figured out she was Supergirl the night that Cadmus tried to fly a ship full of alien refugees into space. I had offered Kara to help find out where mother may have been keeping the aliens. I figured it out, but unfortunately, mother found out and send some goons to keep me quiet.  
  
“I was calling Kara to tell her what I had found when they showed up. I tried to take them on, but it didn’t go so well and I ended up falling over the balcony in my office. Thank god I was talking to Kara at the time. She managed to show up in time to save me.  
  
“And that’s when I figured it out,” Lena said, smiling at the memory. “When Supergirl saved me, she was holding me in her arms and I felt so, so safe. And I realized it was the exact same way I felt whenever Kara hugged me. From there, it was easy to put two and two together.”  
  
“I knew it was Kara’s secret to tell so I never said anything to her at first, but once we started dating I started dropping hints that I knew. The thing is, she never seemed to pick up on them, no matter how blatant I got. But then one day…"

* * *

It wasn’t long after Lena and Kara had begun dating that Sunday mornings became Lena’s favorite time of the week. As a busy CEO and a reporter/superhero (though officially Lena only knew about the former), they never knew when work might call one of them away. However, it turns out that very few business deals and even fewer crime sprees happen at 6 AM on Sunday mornings. So Sunday mornings changed from the one day of the week were Lena slept in to the day she would actually get up a little early because it was their time.

Sometimes after they woke up they would spend all or most of the morning in bed. But other times they would just hang out on the couch, catching up on their latest Netflix obsession, or just taking care of some simple household chores. Lena loved the domesticity of it all.

On this particular Sunday morning, they were doing laundry at Lena’s apartment. Even though it was Lena’s apartment, Kara slept over often enough that at least as much of Kara’s stuff ended up in the laundry as Lena’s (a fact that never stopped to warm Lena’s heart). Lena was in the process of turning on the washing machine when Kara grabbed her hand. “Just a second!”

Kara ran into the other room and returned a moment later with a bundle in her arms. “Just, um, just a few more things to add in,” Kara said as she quickly opened the door to the washer and threw the clothes into the machine. She pushed a few buttons and turned on the machine.

While they were waiting for the washer to finish, the two women went back to the sofa to watch Netflix. A few minutes into their show, Lena noticed that Kara was being uncharacteristically quiet. Usually she loved to make little jokes or try to warn the characters away from making bad decisions but this morning she hadn’t said a word.

“Is everything okay, darling?” Lena asked, resting her hand on Kara’s knee.

Kara jumped at the contact. “What? Oh, yeah. Everything is fine. Why wouldn’t it be fine?”

“You just seem a little… tense,” Lena elaborated. “Are you sure you are okay?”

“I promise I’m fine,” Kara reassured. “I am just looking forward to spending a nice quiet morning with my girlfriend.”

“Me too, darling.” Lena figured there was more to the story, Kara looked really nervous for some reason. But Lena knew that Kara would talk to her if she really needed to talk. Unless it was Supergirl business at least, but if it were that, Kara would have already told Lena she had some sort of “emergency story” she needed to go cover.

As they kept watching their show, Lena kept an eye on her girlfriend. Kara would start to relax for a few minutes as she got caught up in the episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine they were watching and then she would suddenly tense up again, as if remembering there was a reason she was stressing out.

As the episode ended, the buzzer went off indicating the washing machine. Kara nearly jumped out of her seat at the noise but then deliberately settled back down, making no move to get off the couch.

Since the superhero apparently had no intentions of getting the laundry, Lena started to get up to get it. As she rose, Kara suddenly grabbed her by the arm and the next thing she knew, she was sitting in Kara’s lap as the two shared an intimate gaze. “Kara!” Lena shouted with a laugh.

“I- I just want you to know that I love you,” Kara said, her eyes watering. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too, sweetie,” Lena responded, pressing a gentle kiss on her lips. Kara was starting to worry her a bit. Something clearly had her worked up.

“I know. I— I just hope nothing ever changes that,” Kara implored.

“Nothing is going to change the way I feel; I’ve never been so sure of something in my life,” Lena said, giving her girlfriend another kiss.

When Kara didn’t say anything further, Lena gently rose off the couch and made her way to the laundry room. She could feel Kara’s gaze follow her as she went.

It wasn’t until Lena started moving the clothes from the washer to the dryer that she realized why Kara had been so nervous. There, in the midst of their other clothes, was a blue and red suit.

* * *

Lena chuckled as she finished telling the story.

“So wait,” Maggie asked, “You were waiting for months for her to tell you she was Supergirl, and when she finally tells you it was only because it was laundry day and she needed a clean suit?”

“It wasn’t about the suit,” Lena explained. “Kara and I have crazy lives. I’m the CEO of a multi-national company, the sister of Superman’s greatest enemy, the daughter of the head of Cadmus and someone that is constantly under suspicion from the public. Kara is a freaking superhero who goes out there every day, putting her own life on the line to make the world a better place. But when we are together, it’s about us. It doesn’t matter what the world thinks of us, what are jobs are, or what dangers we face; we are just two women who love each other.

“Kara wasn’t keeping quiet about the fact she was Supergirl because she was worried about how I would react, or because she thought she needed to protect me or anything like that. She didn’t want to talk about Supergirl because she wanted us to just be ourselves. Putting her Supergirl outfit in the washing machine was her way of telling me without disrupting our happy little bubble.”

“So what happened after you saw the outfit?” Maggie asked.

“I loaded everything into the dryer, and sat back down on the couch and spent the morning cuddling with my girlfriend. She had been so nervous about bursting our bubble; I’ve rarely seen her happier than she was when I came back from the laundry room and cuddled back up next to her so we could keep watching TV. Just because I knew her secret didn’t mean we weren’t still us.”

“That’s actually kind of sweet,” Maggie admitted.

“It really was,” Lena agreed. “I didn’t have the heart to point out to Kara that she had put her Super suit into a load of whites.”

Alex laughed. “Yeah, those suits aren't really machine-washable.”

“We ended up with some pretty interesting patterns on some of our outfits, that is for sure,” Lena chuckled.

“So does Sam know too then?” Alex asked.

“No, I don’t think she has any idea.” Lena answered, not even needing to think about the question. “She hasn’t really had any interactions with Supergirl, so she hasn’t put the pieces together yet.

“We’ve been talking about her telling her though,” Lena added. “Not in so many words because we’ve never directly had the Supergirl conversation, but we have been talking about asking her to move in with us. And Kara said that before we ask Sam to move in with us she thought it would be a good idea for all four of us to sit down and talk about any secrets we might feel the need to share.”

“Four?” Maggie asked, raising an eyebrow. “Are you dating someone else now too? Damn, Luthor!”

“No,” Lena shook her head with a laugh. “I am very happy with the two girlfriends I have now, thanks. But Kara wanted to make sure Ruby was included too. We’ve both grown quite fond of her and if we are going to make a life together with Sam and Ruby, they both deserve to know the truth. As great as it has been dating Sam, and getting to know Ruby, it has been hard keeping things secret from them. It’ll be nice to get it all out in the open. Ruby is going to be so excited; she’s the biggest Supergirl fan.”

Speaking of Sam and keeping secrets, she realized she still had no idea what to do.It wouldn’t be fair to not let Sam and Ruby know that Kara had been badly injured. And she knew that Kara would love to have them here when she woke up. Kara was planning on telling them her identity, but it still felt wrong for Lena to give away Kara’s secret without her explicit consent.

Before Lena could figure out how to resolve that conundrum, her phone began to ring. She was momentarily puzzled because she had put it on silent before she and Maggie had started their whole break-in adventure. Her eyes widen as she realized it was the emergency ring-tone that Sam had set up for Lena, Kara, Sam and Ruby.

Lena pulled her phone out of her pocket. She quickly looked at the screen and then answered, “Ruby?”

“Lena!” Ruby yelled over the phone, between what sounded like sobs.

“What is it, sweetheart? Is everything okay?” Lena stood up. Her mind was swirling with possible things that could have gone wrong.

“Um— Is mom with you?”

“No, I haven’t seen her since yesterday,” Lena responded. She and Kara had lunch with Sam the day before, but she hadn’t had any contact with her since then.

“She never came home last night. I think something might have happened to her.”  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gee, I wonder what might have happened with Sam?   
> With Kara in a coma and Sam busy being Reign, it'll be up to Lena to do a lot of the heavy-lifting for this story (at least for the next little while). I have tried to slip in bits of backstory when possible so you will get a bit more of a sense of Lena, Kara and Sam's relationship (as seen with the flashback scene in this chapter). 
> 
> Also, I don't think the show ever really established one way or the other, but I figure there's no way that Supergirl's other identity is a secret to any random DEO agent. She is too Kara when she's at DEO headquarters for people not to have made the connection.


	4. Second Times a Charm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously on Where There's a Will:
> 
> Lena finally got to see Kara. Kara's alive but still in a coma. 
> 
> After sharing a story about how Kara revealed her secret identity, Lena got a frantic call from Ruby. Something's up with Sam!

Lena knew she should have at least checked in with Sam last night. She had thought about it repeatedly but she had been so worried about how to tell Sam about Kara, that she hadn’t actually called her. Not even a quick text. And now she realizes she hadn’t heard from Sam all evening. That was unusual in and of itself, but even more since it was Christmas Eve.

“What happened, Ruby?” Lena asked, trying to keep the panic out of her voice.

“Mom’s— Mom’s not here. She didn’t come home last night and when I got up this morning, she still wasn’t here. I tried calling her, but she’s not answering her phone. Not even when I called the emergency number. It just goes to voicemail.”

“And she didn’t leave a note or anything?” This was definitely not like Sam. Not like Sam at all.

“No,” the teenager answered. “There’s nothing. Can you— can you come over?”

“Of course, sweetie,” Lena replied mentally calculating the distance from the DEO to Sam’s house. “I will be there in about 15 minutes.”

“Okay. Can you call Kara too?” the girl asked. “I’d really like it if both of you could come.”

 “Um, Snapper called her in to work this morning. I’m not sure if she’ll be able to leave, but I’ll see what I can do.” Lena felt horrible lying to the girl, especially when she was already so worried about her mom. But now definitely wasn’t the time to tell her that Kara was Supergirl and also in a coma.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can, okay?”

“Okay, thanks, Lena. I love you,” Ruby answered.

“Love you too,” Lena answered before hanging up the phone.

“What’s wrong, Lena?” Maggie asked.

“I’m not sure. Sam never came home last night and she’s not answering her phone. I’ve got to get over there and make sure Ruby’s okay.” Lena was already gathering her things and heading for the door.

“Wait,” Alex said, grabbing Lena gently by the arm to halt her exit. “It’s awfully suspicious that something happened to Sam the same night that Supergirl was taken out of commission.”

“What are you getting at?” Lena asked.

“What if it’s not a coincidence? You aren’t the only one to figure out Kara’s secret identity. Cadmus knows too. And god knows who else. What if someone saw that Supergirl was out of the way and they used it as an opportunity to kidnap Sam. It’s too dangerous. I should come with you.”

“My mother is a monster, Alex, but she’s still my mother. She may be a horrible mother, but kidnapping my girlfriend on Christmas Eve after my other girlfriend was just put in a coma? That’s too much, even for her.”

“I would still feel better if we came with you,” Alex countered.

It would be safer if Alex came, but she couldn’t just leave Kara lying there all alone. “You two should stay. I don’t want Kara waking up to an empty room. She’s been through enough.”

Alex looked like she was going to continue to argue, but seeing the stern look in Lena’s eyes was enough to get her to relent. “Fine, we’ll stay. But at least let me send Agent Vasquez with you. She’s one of my best agents. If Kara wakes up and finds out that I let you go over there by yourself with everything that is going on, she’ll kill me.”

This seemed like an acceptable compromise to Lena. “Okay, fine. It’ll be faster if we can take a DEO vehicle instead of waiting for my driver to get here.”

“Smart woman,” Alex answered, sighing in relief.

 

* * *

 

Lena had to give it to the DEO, they were efficient. Less than two minutes after she agreed to Alex’s suggestions, she and Agent Vasquez were in a DEO car and speeding across the city.

Lena had only met Agent Vasquez a couple of times previously. The woman had joined them a couple of times for game night at her apartment. She had been a little quiet, but she seemed nice enough. And according to Alex she was a skilled DEO agent, so that was good enough for Lena.

“So what are we heading in to, Ms. Luthor?” Agent Vasquez asked as they continued driving down the street.

“Agent Danvers didn’t tell you?” Lena didn’t know much about secret government agencies, but if they were anything like the non-secret ones, then Agent Vasquez should have been given a rundown on what to expect.

“We didn’t really have time for a full briefing. She just said that you needed an urgent escort to 47 Oak Drive.”  
Lena realized Alex had left it up to her to provide Agent Vasquez with the details, presumably so they could get going just a little bit faster. Silently thanking the woman for her thoughtfulness, Lena filled Vasquez in on what she knew.

“Any idea what might have happened to your girlfriend?”

“Alex—er, Agent Danvers thought my mom might have had something to do with it. But I don’t think that is it. Sam doesn’t really have any enemies, though I suppose it is possible someone has kidnapped her to get to me. I do have more than my share of enemies.

“After we started dating though, I helped her to install a state of the art security system though. And nobody triggered any alarms. Though I suppose something could have happened when she wasn’t at home.” The more Lena talked about it, the more she got a sinking feeling in her stomach. Something had happened to Sam and she had no idea what.

“I assume you’ve tried her phone?”

“Of course,” Lena answered. “I called her as soon as I got off the phone with Ruby. It just goes straight to voicemail.”

“The DEO is very good at what we do,” Vasquez assured Lena. “We’ll find her.” Vasquez hesitated for a moment, as if she was unsure if she should say whatever it was she was going to say.

“Is there something else, Agent Vasquez?” Lena questioned.

“I admit I don’t know you very well, but I’ve seen the good that L-Corp has done for this city, and Supergirl has been a lot happier since you two started dating. I never would have pegged you as the cheating type.”

“Excuse me?”

“I just can’t believe someone would be brave enough and cruel enough to cheat on someone as powerful and as sweet as Kara Danvers.”

Lena realized the source of the confusion. While Vasquez had been at her and Kara’s apartment a couple of times, both of those times were before the two of them had begun dating Sam. “I can assure you, Agent Vasquez, that I love both Kara Danvers and Samantha Arias very much and I wouldn’t dream of cheating on either one of them.” It was only logical that the agent had misunderstood about the nature of her relationships, but Lena couldn’t help but be a little offended at the very idea that she would betray either of her girlfriends.

Vasquez seemed to immediately realize her mistake. “Oh, the three of you are together? Shit, I’m sorry. I really am a fan, Miss Luthor. That’s why I was disappointed when I thought you were cheating on Kara. I really shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions; I’m sorry.”

“I understand. Some days I still have a hard time believing it myself; that not one, but two such wonderful women would want to be with me.” Lena truly was a lucky woman, even in light of the current situation. These last few months had been the best of her life.

 

* * *

 

Kara and Lena had just moved in together when Lena hired her old friend Sam as L-Corp’s new CFO. Lena hadn’t seen Sam in person since they had graduated from college a few years prior. She was a little worried their friendship might be strained by the distance and all the horrible things her family had done since Lena’s college days but their friendship picked up right where they had left off.

Lena loved having Sam back in her life and soon Sam was a frequent guest at Lena and Kara’s apartment. The first couple times that Sam had visited, Kara had definitely been a little jealous. Lena had been quick to reassure Kara that while she cared for Sam, Sam was just a friend. Once Kara felt comfortable that Sam wasn’t trying to swoop in and steal Lena’s affection, she quickly warmed to the other woman.

The three adults were all very busy people; it was common for Lena and/or Sam to be tied with important L-Corp business and Kara was constantly running off to cover a “breaking news story” so they spent a lot of time together in various permutations. Lena thought she and Kara shared a really great friendship with Sam. And she was amazed at how quickly Kara took to Ruby; Lena herself loved the chance to reconnect with the little girl she had known when she and Sam were in college together. Lena thought they had an amazing friendship. She even referred to Sam as the sister she never had on more than one occasion.

It wasn’t until the night of Alex and Maggie’s wedding that it occurred to Lena that “like a sister” might not be the best way to describe Sam. The wedding was fantastic, everyone was having a blast and alcohol was flowing freely (Lena even noticed Kara sneaking sips on a flask of what Lena assumed had to be some sort of alien equivalent when she thought nobody was looking). Lena and Kara were dancing, and then Lena and Sam were dancing, and then all three of them were dancing together. Lena couldn’t remember the last time she felt so carefree.

Things got a bit blurry after that and when Lena woke up the next morning with an epic hangover, she snuggled closer to the woman in front of her and was shocked to realize the woman, the very naked woman, she was holding her arms wasn’t Kara. It was Sam. And on the other side of Sam was an equally naked Kara.

Once everyone was awake, they had talked about it, but they brushed the encounter off as just a bit of fun. Everyone was on such an emotional rush from the wedding, and fueled by all the alcohol they had consumed, and it turned out none of them was even able to recall more than brief flashes from the time they had left the dance floor until they had woken up together (not that their lack of memories spared them from the ribbing Alex and Maggie would end up giving them the next day). Lena loved Kara, Lena treasured Sam’s friendship, and she didn’t want to do anything that might threaten that so she pushed down the little voice in the back of her head that was clamoring for her attention and she agreed that it was just a harmless fun between friends who had a bit too much to drink.

Lena was a little bit terrified that things would be awkward. And they were, for a few minutes, but by the time Sam was serving Kara and Lena her patented, hangover-curing pancakes, they were laughing and smiling like this was any other random Sunday morning together, like they hadn’t just had sex hours before. Lena sighed in relief knowing that nothing had to change.

And it did seem like nothing had changed, for a little while at least. But then a couple weeks later, it happened again. The three women were having a movie night at Kara and Lena’s apartment and somehow it happened again. While they had cracked open a bottle of wine, none of the women were even close to drunk so alcohol couldn’t be an excuse this time. One moment they were just snuggled up on the couch together and the next, Sam and Kara were kissing. And then Sam and Lena were kissing. Things quickly escalated from there and again Lena woke up to find herself naked in bed with her girlfriend and her best friend (though Lena couldn’t help the smile that broke on her face when she realized she was in the one in the middle this time).

While the two women dozed peacefully on either side of her, Lena thought about what this meant. Clearly Sam wasn’t just their closest friend. The first time, it was easy enough to chalk it up to the drinking and the wedding atmosphere, but there was no such excuse this time. And since they weren’t drunk, this time she had a very clear memory of what it had felt like making love to Kara and Sam at the same time.

Now that she was letting herself really think about it, she realized that she thought about Sam in much the same way she thought about Kara. She would get just as happy when Sam stopped by unexpectedly for lunch. She spent just as much time texting Sam as she did Kara (though both those chat conversations paled in comparison to the amount of texting they did in the group chat the three of them shared). She enjoyed cuddling with Sam when they watched movies as she did with Kara, but her favorite was when all three of them were cuddled up together. Lena wanted to date them both.

Part of Lena was terrified that everything would fall apart if the three of them started dating. But she realized now that she was coming to love Sam every bit as much as she loved Kara. Now that she let herself think about it, they had been basically dating for a while now, just without the physical part. They would definitely have something to talk about once everyone woke up. She just hoped that Kara and Sam were on the same page as her.

Figuring this is the sort of conversation she and Sam wouldn’t want to have before their morning coffee, and knowing that Kara definitely wasn’t capable of a serious conversation before she had breakfast, Lena very carefully slid out from between Kara and Sam, threw on a robe, had a quick shower and made her way into the kitchen. When she returned with a tray full of food and coffee about thirty minutes later, she saw that Kara and Sam were both still sound asleep, but now the two women were cuddled up together. Lena found herself smiling at the sight; Sam was facing the edge of the bed and Kara had her arms wrapped protectively around her from behind. Both women looked completely at peace.

Lena couldn’t bring herself to wake Kara and Sam when they looked so content, but she was saved from having to do by Kara’s super (food) senses. “Wha… Waffles?” Kara mumbled as she began to wake.

Lena laughed. Kara could always be counted on to know when there was food around. “Yes, indeed, my love. I’ve also got eggs, bacon, sausages and toast. I figured you probably worked up quite the appetite last night.”

Kara was clearly still only half-awake. “You’re the best, babe,” Kara said while snuggling closer to Sam and closing her eyes again. A few seconds later, Kara’s eyes shot open as looked over to where Lena was standing at the side of their bed, smirking and holding a tray of food, and definitely not lying in Kara’s arms.  

Over the next few seconds, the shock and confusion on Kara’s face gradually faded and she regarded Lena with a shy smile. “I guess we did it again, huh?”

“And then some,” Lena confirmed. “I think the three of us need to have a conversation that is long overdue, but I figured some breakfast first would be a good idea.”

“Well, I’ll never say ‘no’ to a beautiful woman bringing me breakfast in bed,” Kara answered her girlfriend.

“Me either,” Sam quipped, apparently awoken by their conversation. Unlike Kara though, she didn’t seem to harbor any confusion about where she was, and she made no move to extract herself from Kara’s embrace. “And there are definitely some things I would like to discuss with both of you.”

It turns out it is a little hard to concentrate on breakfast when you are sitting in bed with your girlfriend and your maybe more than just best friend. It certainly didn’t help Lena’s concentration that neither Sam nor Kara had seemed to feel the need to get dressed before they ate. Lena was well-acquainted with Kara’s physique at this point, but she was surprised at just how toned Sam was. Lena mused that Sam must be putting in an awful lot of hours at the gym, if the abs currently on display were anything to go by.

Once the food was all gone, Lena started to get back up to clear the dishes. “Lena, no!” Kara called. “You already made breakfast. Let me clean up.”

“I would,” Lena admitted. “But we all need to talk. And I think it’ll be a lot easier to do that if you two put some clothes on. Not that I am not enjoying the view,” Lena winked. “But, it’s a more than a little distracting. So I’ll clean up while you two get dressed.”

Obviously, it takes some time to clean up after breakfast, especially when cooking for a Kyptonian. Within a few minutes, Lena heard the shower going and a few minutes after that Sam, now dressed in some comfy-looking sweats, joined her in the kitchen. She took up a spot beside Lena and began drying the dishes that Lena was washing.

The two women made a good team and by the time Kara completed her own shower and made her way to the kitchen, they had just finished putting away the last of the dishes. “Oh, I see how it is,” Sam joked. “You wait until the second we finish cleaning to just happen to finish getting ready.”

“I— I would never!” Kara protested. “I offered to clean up earlier!”

“A clever ruse,” Sam jested. “We’re on to you, Miss Danvers!” At Kara’s pout, Sam relented. “I’m just teasing you, Kara.”

“Of course. I knew that,” Kara insisted, though clearly fooling nobody.

“Sure you did, babe,” Lena followed up, giving her girlfriend a quick peck on the lips when she continued to pout.

Now that they were all here, Lena wished she had spent more time thinking about what she was actually going to say. How did you ask your best friend and your girlfriend if they would like to evolve your relationship? It seemed like everyone was on the same page, but what if she misjudged the situation and see just made everything awkward by suggesting that they date? Would she ruin her friendship with Sam? And what about Kara? What if she got offended and thought Lena was saying that Kara wasn’t enough for her? What if she lost her girlfriend and her best friend by suggesting anything should change?

As if sensing Lena’s spiral into panic, Sam gently grabbed her by the hand. “Why don’t we all go have a seat on the couch. I have something I would like to talk to you both about.”

Once they were all seated comfortably on the couch, Sam turned to the two women. “Okay,” she said, taking a deep breath to compose herself. “I’m just going to say it. Lena, I have been in love with you for a very long time. Ever since our second year of college, in fact.”

Lena was flabbergasted. She knew there were more than friendly feelings between them since Sam had moved to National City, but she had no idea Sam had feelings for her back then. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

“You were Lena Luthor. A brilliant, driven women with an amazing future ahead of her. I was a single mother; a college student with a seven-year old daughter. I was struggling just to get by. Most days I was happy just to keep it together enough to support myself and Ruby. At the time, I figured there was no way I was good enough for you.”

“You weren’t good enough for me? I had everything in my life handed to me. You managed to raise a kid, work a full time job, put yourself through college and graduate class valedictorian. If anyone wouldn’t have been good enough, it was me.”

“I think you are both pretty amazing,” Kara interjected shyly.

Sam turned to Kara, looking at the woman with love in her eyes. “Look who’s talking. When I first moved to National City, I had resigned myself to being Lena’s best friend. Well, not resigned, because being Lena’s best friend has been amazing, but I didn’t think there was ever the possibility we would be anything more. Especially once I met Lena’s equally amazing girlfriend.

“I will admit, Kara, before I met you, I thought I wouldn’t be able to like you; I thought that I would be just too jealous. But I think it may well be literally impossible not to like you, Kara Danvers. You are the kindest, most compassionate woman I have ever met and just being around you brightens my whole day.

“It kind of sucked,” Sam added with a laugh. “Now I had not one but two women I was in love with, but they were in love with each other. But at the same time, being friends with the two of you has been amazing. I loved spending time with you, and I love how you have always made time for Ruby.

“So I told myself, I didn’t need your love as long as I had your friendship. That’s why I didn’t say anything after the wedding. We were all drunk and things just kind of happened. So I couldn’t risk your friendships based on that. But after last night, I’m starting to think that maybe you guys have feelings for me too?”

Sam had looked down at this last part, as if she was scared to look either of them in the eyes. Lena looked over at Kara to gauge how she was feeling about all this. She saw that Kara was looking at her as well. She saw hope in Kara’s eyes and she knew the same was reflected in her own. She gave Kara a small nod.

While Kara and Lena had been having their silent conversation, Sam had kept her eyes looking down at the ground and apparently her courage had finally run out. “Unless, this was just like a friends-with-benefits thing? Uh, crap. Can you just forget I—”

Sam was cut off when she Kara suddenly appeared in her lap, kissing her soundly. It was a good thing that she had been looking down, because in her rush to stop Sam’s despair, Kara had definitely moved faster than any human could. When Kara pulled back, Lena leaned in and gave Sam a kiss as well.

“We have feelings for you too!” Kara squealed. “Thank Rao you said something! I actually was stalling in the bathroom earlier. I was trying to figure out what to say and I was just so scared. I was like, what if Sam doesn’t like me? What if she only likes Lena? What if you don’t like either of us and Lena gets mad at me for having feelings for you and then everything goes all kerplewy?”

Lena took one of Sam’s hands and one of Kara’s hands and linked them together. Then she took Sam’s other hand into her own. “Samantha Arias, would you do us the honor of being our girlfriend?”  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So in the original outline, there was just supposed to be a small flashback in this chapter to fill in a bit of backstory. But once I started writing it, I felt like I had to really flesh it out a bit (especially as we won't be getting to see Sam in present day for a while yet). 
> 
> But once I started fleshing it out, it felt like it easily could be its own multi-chapter story. I didn't want to derail the story with a multi-chapter flashback though so I constrained it a bit to ensure it fit into one chapter (even if it is the longest chapter so far). 
> 
> We should see some bigger plot developments in the present day with the next chapter.


	5. Confusion Reigns

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously on Where There's a Will:
> 
> Alex convinced Lena to take Agent Vasquez with her when she went to check on Ruby and investigate Sam's apparent disappearance.
> 
> On the drive over, Lena spent a lot of time thinking about how she and Kara started dating Sam. 
> 
> Also, my apologies for the terrible pun in the title for this chapter. I just couldn't help myself!

Lena was shaken from her reverie by the realization they were pulling into Sam’s driveway. She could see Ruby was waiting by the front door. Before Vasquez had even finished parking the car, Lena jumped out of the vehicle and ran towards the house. 

Ruby, having seen Lena’s arrival, rushed out to meet her and practically tackled Lena with a hug. Lena after recovering her balance, stroked Ruby’s hair and did her best to comfort the young woman. “I’m here, darling.” 

The two stood in the front yard, just holding each other for several minutes as Ruby cried. As worried as Lena was about Sam, she realized this had to be even harder for Ruby. She wanted to start trying to find Sam, but she knew that right now Ruby needed her. 

As Ruby’s tears began to subside, at least temporarily, she began to talk. “It’s not like mom to leave me alone all night; I mean, sometimes she does if she’s really busy at work, but she always calls me to let me know. And then she has you or Kara, or sometimes Mrs. Gardner, come over to take care of me.”

“When was the last time you saw your mom?” 

“Around 6 PM? We made supper together and after we finished cleaning up she said she had a few things she needed to take care of at the office. She promised she wouldn’t be gone long. We always watch _It’s a Wonderful Life_ together on Christmas Eve. When she didn’t come home, I thought she must have been busy with work and forgot about our tradition. I should have called her, but I was so mad at her for forgetting about me that I just went to bed instead.

“It wasn’t until I woke up realized she still wasn’t home that I started freaking out.” 

“What about her car?” Agent Vasquez asked, “Is it in the garage?” 

For the first time, Ruby noticed the agent standing off to the side. “Ruby, this is Agent Vasquez. She works with Alex at the FBI. She came with me to help find your mom.” 

“Uh, nice to meet you,” Ruby said, pulling away from Lena enough to extend a wave in greeting. “I haven’t checked, but she hasn’t been back so I am guessing the car isn’t back.” Ruby replied. 

“When I got up this morning, I went to kitchen. When mom wasn’t there, I figured she had gotten in late and she was still asleep so I checked her room and that’s when I saw her bed was still made so I knew she hadn’t been home at all, so I called Lena.”

“And she would normally take her car when she goes out?” The agent asked, pulling out a tablet to jot down some notes. 

“Yeah,” Ruby confirmed. “She refused to let Lena get her a driver when we moved here. She always says that she loves driving too much to let someone else do it for her.”

“Okay, well, let’s go check the garage then,” Agent Vasquez said. “Best to be sure.” 

When they opened the garage door, they were surprised to see that the car was in the garage. 

“Are you sure she took the car last night, sweetie?” Lena asked. 

“Not 100%,” Ruby admitted. “I mean, I didn’t see her actually get in the car and drive away. I was in the living room when she left. But she was going to the office, and it’s not like she could just walk.”

“Maybe she took a cab?” Vasquez offered. 

“I guess,” Lena agreed. “But why would she take a cab when her car is right here?”

“Ruby,” Agent Vasquez asked, “Is it okay if we check the rest of the house? I just want to see if there is anything out of the ordinary. Something that might give us a clue as to where your mom went.” 

Searching the living room first, Lena paused to look at the Christmas tree. A little over twelve hours ago, when it was still a normal Christmas Eve, the plan had been for Lena, Kara, Sam and Ruby to be sat around that tree opening Christmas presents right now. It was going to be their first Christmas together. And now one of them was in a coma and another was missing. 

She could see that everyone’s presents had been placed under the tree. She took a look at them, smiling when she realized that the presents she assumed had been from Ruby due to the haphazard wrapping were actually the ones from Kara (apparently, super speed doesn’t translate into super good at wrapping gifts). Lena hoped for nothing more than to have her family with her right now so they could sit around this tree and have a traditional Christmas. She couldn’t help with Kara’s coma, but she was going to do everything she could to find Sam and bring her home safe and sound. 

As they continued the search, they didn’t find any signs of struggle or forced entry. But they did find Sam’s cellphone, sitting on the charger in her bedroom. For whatever reason, Sam hadn’t taken the phone with her when she left the previous day. 

“That’s so weird,” Ruby said, as she picked up the phone. “Mom never forgets her phone. Like ever.”

Lena took the phone from Ruby and swiped the screen. She wasn’t really surprised when she was greeted with a passcode screen. “Any chance you know your mom’s password, Rubes?”

“I do, actually.” Ruby took the phone back and tapped the screen a few times. “There. You are all set,” Ruby added, handing the phone back. 

“I’m just going to pull up the location history. As long as she hasn’t disabled her location tracking, it should tell us where she’s been. Maybe she actually did come home last night and then left again for some reason. That would explain her car and her phone being here.” Lena knew that wouldn’t answer all their questions, but it would at least narrow down their search a bit.

Fortunately Sam hadn’t turned off her location tracking, so all of her phone’s travels were being logged. It looked like Sam had indeed forgotten her phone when she left for the office. The phone was showing as having been at its current address since 4 PM the previous day. 

Lena was about to put the phone back down when she noticed something odd about the rest of Sam’s timeline for December 24th. “Huh.”

“What is it?” Vasquez asked. 

“Her phone didn’t go anywhere last night, but I am looking at earlier in the day. Sam came to CatCo with Kara and I for lunch. You can see she arrived at 12:24 PM. She had to leave a little earlier than usual to go deal with something back at L-Corp. But her phone is showing that she had left CatCo at 12:48 PM and then she had arrived at Morgan Edge’s building, 4 miles away, at 12:50 PM. Why would she have gone to Edge’s building? And how could she have possibly gotten there so quickly?”

“Wait, she was at Morgan Edge’s building yesterday afternoon? At 12:50 PM?” Vasquez asked. 

“It looks like it,” Lena said. “Oh crap, Kara and I told her about how Edge tried to kill me again. You don’t think she went over to confront him, do you?” What if Sam had threatened Edge? So far, he had seemed content to limit his nefarious schemes to discrediting and/or murdering Lena, but if he saw Sam as an obstacle to those plans…

“That bastard! He’s probably behind Sam’s disappearance!” If he had done anything to Sam, Lena was not going to let him get away again.

“Um, can I speak to you in private for a moment, Ms. Luthor?” Vasquez asked. 

“You can’t do that!” Ruby protested, tears threatening to return. “If it’s about my mom, I deserve to know.” 

“Ruby’s right,” Lena agreed. 

“I really think it would be best if we talk first,” Vasquez objected. 

“Fine,” Ruby relented, giving in way too easily. Lena suspected the young woman was just going to eavesdrop on whatever Vasquez had to to tell her. Not wanting to keep Ruby in the dark more than she already had, Lena just agreed with Vasquez’s request. 

Whether Vasquez also suspected Ruby’s plans or not, Lena wasn’t sure, but she lead Vasquez to the relative privacy of the garage (though Lena made a point to leave the door between the front hall and the garage open just a sliver, to make it easier for Ruby to listen in).

Once they were alone, Vasquez turned to Lena. “I’m not quite sure how to tell you this,” Agent Vasquez said. “But yesterday afternoon, Reign attacked Morgan Edge’s office. Edge managed to get away from her, but Reign killed several of his guards.”

“Oh my god. Was Sam there when she attacked? Is she okay?” Lena’s panic dulled slightly as she realized she must have been okay, because she was home with Ruby after going to Edge’s office. So either she had been lucky enough to have left before Reign showed up, or she had managed to survive the encounter unscathed. So Reign couldn’t have hurt her. But maybe she had gotten on to Reign’s radar in the process?

“You think that Reign might have taken Sam?” Lena asked. Oh, this was bad; this was very bad. Before she was worried about what Edge might have done to Sam, but if it was Reign… She saw what Reign had done to Supergirl. There’s no way Sam would stand a chance if Reign had decided to attack her. 

“Okay, look at the evidence, Ms. Luthor,” Vasquez spoke, seemingly urging Lena to make a connection she was missing. “Last night, Ms. Arias disappeared. Last night, Reign also defeated Supergirl, the most serious challenge to her power in National City. And yesterday afternoon, after you told her about Edge trying to kill you, Ms. Arias somehow traveled the 4 miles from the CatCo building to Morgan Edge’s offices in 2 minutes. And, around the same time, Reign showed up, apparently intent on killing Morgan Edge.” 

“So you are saying that Reign was following Sam?” Lena said, mind refusing to connect the dots. 

“I’m sorry, Lena,” Vasquez said softly, “But Reign hasn’t been following your girlfriend. Your girlfriend _is_ Reign.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Lena. She had all the information she needed to solve that mystery on her own, but sometimes the truth is hard to face.
> 
> Also, I've never actually seen _It's a Wonderful Life_ , but apparently a lot of people watch it at Christmas?


	6. Thank You, GPS!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously on Where There's a Will:
> 
> Lena and Vasquez arrived at the Arias residence. Together with Ruby, they searched for clues on Sam's whereabouts. 
> 
> After seeing the location data on Sam's phone, Vasquez tells Lena that she thinks Sam is Reign.

Lena was stunned into silence. There was no way that Sam, the woman who, during their college days, had once spent months nursing a pigeon back to health after it flew into her window, could be the woman who had been terrorizing the city and had beat Kara in to a coma. 

“It’s not true! My mom would never do those things!” Ruby cried, bursting through the door. Lena had forgotten that the young woman had been standing on the other side of the door, eavesdropping on their conversation. She hadn’t wanted to keep secrets from Ruby, but this certainly wasn’t the best way for her to find out that her mom was a supervillain. Except she hadn’t found that out, because there was no way that Sam and Reign were the same person.

“Ruby’s right,” Lena nodded. “Sam might have a bit of a temper when her family is threatened, but she would never hurt anyone, let alone decide to become National City’s next supervillain.” 

“I know you don’t want to hear this,” Vasquez responded. “And I’m really sorry to have to tell you this, Ruby, but the evidence fits. She’s about the right size and appearance for Reign, she went missing at the same time Reign gain undisputed control of the city and there’s no other explanation for how she could have gotten from CatCo to Edge’s building that quickly.”

“Supergirl!” Ruby protested.

“What do you mean?” Vasquez asked.

“Supergirl is that fast. What if she needed my mom’s help? And she flew her to Edge’s building? Supergirl reaches out to you and Kara for help sometimes, right, Lena? So maybe she needed my mom’s help.”

Lena wished she could accept that as an explanation for Sam’s speedy travel. But Kara was with her at CatCo when Sam left, and so Supergirl had nothing to do with it. Still, there had to be another explanation. 

Lena decided to approach this as a scientist. Vasquez’s hypothesis was that Reign and Sam were one and the same. So Lena needed something she could test against that claim. Something that could disprove the hypothesis. After a moment of thought, she knew exactly what she needed to do. 

“Okay, Agent Vasquez. Reign has been running around town for weeks now, right? Do you have a list of locations and times where Reign has been spotted?” 

Vasquez pulled up a tab on her tablet and loaded a map of National City. It was covered with red circles to indicate each time Reign had been sighted, and red dots for each time they had found one of her insignias. 

“May I?” Lena asked, gesturing for the agent to hand her the tablet. Once she had the tablet, Lena pulled out a USB cable from her handbag and used it to connect the phone to the tablet. 

“I’m just going to upload Sam’s location data over the last few weeks. If your theory is right and she really is Reign, then the locations should match those on your map.”

“What if she didn’t have her phone with her?” Vasquez asked. “It’s here right now.”

“Well, then, at the very least we should see her phone is always in a stationary location any time that Reign is spotted. It won’t be as easy to correlate but the data would still be there. Now, let me just add an overlay of Sam’s locations over the last month.” 

The overlay appeared on the screen and Lena paled. For almost every single dot or circle, Sam’s location was overlaid on top, at the supposed date and time. The only ones that didn’t match were the ones that had happened since last night.

Lena struggled to find an alternative explanation for what she was seeing. She herself had been the target of faked evidence in the past, what if someone was doing the same to Sam? But who would possibly try to frame Sam, and what would they have to gain? If the authorities got this data and used it to arrest Sam, it would immediately be discredited the next time Reign showed up somewhere in the city. It just didn’t make sense. 

“What happened on this day?” Vasquez asked, pointing to an arrow on the edge of the map, dated a few weeks ago. 

Lena zoomed out on the map. “It looks like she drove to the suburbs for a couple hours and then she drove way out into the desert.”

“What day was that?” Vasquez asked, peering over Lena’s shoulder to get a better look at the screen. 

“December 3rd.” 

“That’s the day before we first found one of Reign’s sigils.”

“Wait,” Ruby spoke up, “December 3rd?”

“Yeah,” Lena answered. “Does that ring a bell?”

Nodding, Ruby responded. “We were supposed to go the carnival that day, but Mom said she had to go away for a little while. She needed to find something. She seemed really excited about it. Remember, you and Kara took me to the carnival?”

“I remember,” Lena said. Sam had called and said she had to take care of a few things out of town and she had asked if Lena and Kara were able to take Ruby to the carnival. Lena had never really been much for carnivals, but she was happy to take Ruby, plus she knew Kara would be almost as excited about it as Ruby. It had been a really fun day for the three of them. “That was a good day.”

“Did she tell you what she was looking for?” Vasquez asked. 

Ruby shook her head. “No. I asked her about it the next day, but she didn’t even remember that she had gone anywhere. It was weird, but I thought maybe she just wanted a day to herself or something.” 

Lena loaded on a few more weeks of location data on to the tablet, but everything before December 4th looked normal. Sam didn’t go anywhere unusual, and her trip times all suggested walking or driving without any mysteriously quick trips across town. 

“It can’t be true, can it?” Ruby asked, her voice small. 

Lena handed the tablet back to Agent Vasquez so she could wrap Ruby in a hug. “I’m not sure what’s going on with your mom right now,” Lena admitted. “But one thing I do know is your mom is a wonderful woman; there’s no way she would choose to do any of this. There has to be an explanation for what’s going on. I am going to get to the bottom of what’s happened with your mom and then I am going to bring her back to us.” 

It was clear there had to be some sort of connection between Sam and Reign, but Lena knew there had to be more going on than what they had figured out so far. There’s no way that Sam had just been hiding the fact she was a budding supervillain. She had known the woman for almost a decade. There was no way someone as cold and viscous as Reign could pretend to be someone like Sam. 

“I should take this phone back to the D… FBI,” Agent Vasquez added. “Maybe we can use this to try and figure out where Reign might be hiding in National City. Or glean some other information about it.” 

“That make sense,” Lena said with a nod. “Ruby, can you remove the passcode from the phone?” 

Ruby removed the passcode from the phone. As Vasquez was preparing to leave, the agent said, “I think I should take you two to one of our safehouses.” 

“What?” Ruby shouted. “Why? I have to stay here in case Mom comes home.” 

“That’s what I’m worried about,” Agent Vasquez responded. “If Sam is Reign, and she knows that you have figured out her secret, you might not be safe here.” 

“My mom would never hurt me!” Ruby cried. “She’s my mom!”

Lena was pretty sure that Sam could never hurt Ruby, even if she was Reign, but she wasn’t willing to take that chance. She also wasn’t going to just sit around waiting for the DEO to solve this. But there was no way she was going to just leave Ruby alone, either here or at some DEO safehouse. 

Right now, Lena needed to get back to the DEO and help them figure out what was going on. But she knew that she couldn’t bring the teen with her to the DEO. They hadn’t exactly been thrilled about Lena coming in unauthorized. She can only imagine their reaction if she brought in a minor.

Plus Lena was a little worried about what might happen to Ruby at the DEO. If Sam really was Reign, then she probably wasn’t human. And if she wasn’t human, then neither was Ruby, at least not entirely. Someone might decide that it would be a good idea to use Ruby as a guinea pig to try and find a way to defeat Reign. Alex would never go along with that, but she had yet to meet Alex’s boss so she had no way to know what his stance might be. She wasn’t willing to take that chance. 

“I know you want to stay, Ruby, but your mom wouldn’t want to leave you on your own. And if I’m going to try and find your mom, I can’t stay here with you.” 

“So you are just going to ditch me at some FBI safehouse?”

“Of course not, sweetie. If there was a way I could stay here with you and still find your mom, I would take it in a second. But I can’t leave you alone either.”

“Agent Vasquez, I will see that Ruby gets somewhere safe and then I’ll rejoin you at your office.”

“I don’t want to just leave you two alone,” Vasquez responded, clearly not a fan of the idea. “I’m supposed to make sure you are safe.” 

“I appreciate your concern, but the sooner you get Sam’s phone back to your office, the sooner the FBI can start trying to solve this mystery.” 

While Lena was telling the truth, she neglected to add that she also didn’t want the DEO to know exactly where she was taking Ruby, just to be on the safe side. Plus now that they knew that Reign was the danger they were facing, it’s not like having even a highly-skilled agent watching their back would help if protection really were needed.

Reluctantly, Vasquez agreed with Lena. “Okay, I’ll go. But promise you will call at the first sign of trouble. Kara will kill me if something happens to you.” 

“Where is Kara anyway?” Ruby asked. “I thought you were going to call her. Is that where we are going? To see Kara?”

It took every ounce of her CEO powers, but Lena was pretty sure she managed to keep her face from giving anything away when Ruby asked about Kara. 

If Kara were awake, now would have been the perfect time to bring Ruby to her. Lena would be able to rest easy knowing that Ruby was with family and that no harm would come to her. No matter what Alex’s boss might think or want, there was no way that anyone at the DEO would be able to do anything to Ruby with two Danvers sisters standing in their way (plus the whole superpowers thing would certainly come in handy). 

Lena realized she also couldn’t just tell Ruby that she hadn’t been able to reach Kara. With Sam missing, Ruby’s first thought would be that Kara was missing too. But if Lena said she had talked to Kara, Ruby would expect Kara to either be here or be on her way. Ruby didn’t know Kara was Supergirl, and there weren’t any good non-Supergirl reasons for Kara not to be here. Shit, what was she going to tell Ruby?

“She’s looking for a Christmas tree!” Lena said, blurting out the first excuse she could think of. 

“On Christmas Day?” Ruby questioned, face scrunched in confusion. “Besides, we already have a tree. She helped us pick it out three weeks ago.” 

Lena’s mind whirled. “Uh, Maggie accidentally knocked over her and Alex’s tree. She knew Alex would be really mad at her if she came home to a broken Christmas tree. So Maggie called Kara and asked for her help.” Lena was struck by a burst of inspiration and added, “But obviously none of the Christmas tree lots are still open now that it is Christmas Day, so they were going to have to drive outside of the city to go find a tree in the woods. And obviously since they are in the middle of nowhere, Kara’s phone isn’t working so that’s why I haven’t been able to reach her.”

“I thought you said Snapper had called her into work?” Ruby pressed. 

Lena realized she was trapped now. In her haste to come up with a lie, she had forgotten all about her earlier lie. She was supposed to be a Luthor! Isn’t lying supposed to be in her blood?

“I’m sorry, Ruby. I lied. There is no tree.” 

“Really?” Ruby mocked. “And it was such a plausible story!”

“I can’t tell you why Kara’s here right now,” Lena said. Noticing Ruby was about to object, she continued, “Kara would be here right now if she could. Unfortunately she isn’t able to be here right now. She has a very good reason and I would love to tell you that reason, but it’s her story to tell. For now, can you trust that Kara and I love you very much and we are both going to do our best to get your mom back?”

“Promise?” Ruby asked. 

“Of course, sweetie,” Lena said, embracing the teen. “I swear we will do everything possible to bring your mom home safe and sound.”

Lena just hoped it would be enough. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lena's got some work ahead of her! Next chapter, a little pit stop and then back to the DEO. 
> 
> On a tangential note, does anyone else get kind of stressed out whenever Supergirl does one of their "Is Lena going to go to the dark side?" episodes? Part of me thinks the show is smart enough to realize it's a bad idea to ever actually have Lena go even, but I'm never quite confident enough about it not to worry. I think we've had quite enough of those episodes, thank you!


	7. Getting some Assistance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously on Where There's a Will: 
> 
> Lena and Vasquez used Sam's cellphone to figure out she's been pretty much everywhere that Reign has been. 
> 
> Lena almost accidentally spilled the beans to Ruby on the Supergirl secret but managed to get by with just a promise to explain later. 
> 
> Lena decided she needed to get Ruby somewhere safe before Lena could help solve the Reign mystery.

Once Agent Vasquez had left, Lena helped Ruby pack a couple bags and then they were off.

As Vasquez had been the one to drive Lena to Sam’s house in the first place, they had to arrange for alternative transportation. Rather than calling her driver, Lena decided she would just take Sam’s car. Sam had a rule that she was the only one that was allowed to drive her car (a rule that had been imposed after Kara managed to back the car into a parked car twice in the span of a single week), but she was pretty sure Sam wouldn’t mind given the circumstances. At least Lena hoped she wouldn’t.

Within minutes, Lena and Ruby had pulled up in front of a modest house on Rosewood. With Kara in a coma and Alex and Maggie busy at the DEO, Lena’s options were a bit limited for people she trusted to look after Ruby. When she thought about it, her former assistant, and Sam’s current assistant, Jess, was the obvious choice. She hadn’t left the city for Christmas, Ruby knew her, the two got along well, and ever since relocating to National City with Lena, Jess had been a loyal friend. Ruby would be safe with Jess.

After knocking on the door to Jess’ home, Lena was surprised to find the door not answered by her former assistant, but by her current one. Judging from the look on Eve’s face, the surprise was mutual. “Miss Luthor! You aren’t the delivery guy.”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” Lena responded. “But I do come bearing a delivery,” Lena gestured, indicating the teen girl at her side.

“Hey, Eve,” Ruby greeted.

“Oh, hey, Ruby!” Eve returned the greeting with a smile.

“Is there some problem at L-Corp?” Lena asked, not sure what problem might require Eve and Jess to collaborate. “Why didn’t you call me if there’s an issue? It must be a big deal if you are working on Christmas Day.”

Apparently Ruby found the idea of working on Christmas an amusing one as she burst out in laughter beside her.

“Um,” Eve said, seeming flustered for some reason, “The thing is…”

“Babe, who’s at the door?” Lena heard from inside the house before her former assistant appeared, dressed in sweats and apparently fresh out of the shower. “Um, hello, Miss Luthor. And Ruby too! Merry Christmas.”

The pieces clicked into place for Lena. Eve wasn’t here with Jess because there was a problem at L-Corp. No, the two women were friends! “Merry Christmas, Jess. I hope we aren’t intruding; when I saw my assistants together I figured you must be working on something business-related; I didn’t know you two were friends.”

“Seriously?” Ruby laughed again. “They’re friends?! How can someone so brilliant be so oblivious sometimes? Eve and Jess are spending Christmas Day together, Eve is wearing Jess’ NYU sweater, Jess called Eve ‘babe’ and she literally has her arm wrapped around Eve right now and you figure that means they are friends? That’s the message you are getting right now? Jesus, no wonder it took so long for you, Kara and my mom to start dating.”

Eve and Jess both seemed amused by Ruby’s outburst. “You honestly thought we were just friends?” Eve asked.

“Actually, until about 60 seconds ago, I didn’t even know you were more than work acquaintances to be honest,” Lena admitted, sheepishly.

“How did you not know this, Lena?” Ruby asked. “Haven’t you noticed how often Eve is at L-Corp for lunch? Or how often Jess goes to CatCo for lunch? Or the way the two of them are always looking at each other? What about the fact they went as Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn to the L-Corp Halloween party? One time I even walked into the copy room and—”

“Okay,” Jess squeaked. “Miss Luthor doesn’t need to know every little detail!”

“I mean, I’m just a kid. I’m hardly ever in the office and I noticed it,” Ruby argued.

Looking back on it, all the signs were there. Lena felt embarrassed she hadn’t noticed anything. “With me spending most of my time at CatCo, I guess I just assumed that the two of you had a lot to coordinate to ensure things ran smoothly between the offices.”

Eve laughed at Lena’s statement. “That’s totally the reason I gave Jess when I first told her we should start having regular lunches; I was too chicken to actually just ask her out.”

“I’d say it worked out pretty well in the long run,” Jess chuckled before giving Eve a peck on the lips.

“I’m happy for you two,” Lena smiled. It never occurred to her that her former and current assistants would be a good match, but it was clear that the two women were very happy together.

“Thank you,” Jess answered. “Not that I’m not grateful to see you and Ruby, but I’m guessing you didn’t just come by to ask about our love lives?”

“I’m afraid not,” Lena answered. “Sam is— Sam is missing. Kara’s not available and I have to help find Sam. And with everything that is going on, I didn’t want to leave Ruby alone. If it’s not too much of an imposition, can Ruby stay here while we track down her mom?”

“Of course,” Jess said. “I’m so sorry, Ruby. You can stay here as long as you need. Eve, can you show Ruby where the guest bedroom is?”

“Sure,” Eve answered. “Come on, Ruby, it’s just down the hall here.”

Once Eve and Ruby were out of earshot, Jess turned back to Lena. “I saw the news last night. How’s Kara doing?”

Her natural instinct was to play dumb, but it was clear from the look that Jess was giving her that there wouldn’t be any point. “You know too? That’s it, after this is all over, I’m going to design that woman a damned mask.”

“It’s not that easy to figure out,” Jess admitted. “I was a little worried when you and Kara first started dating. She just seemed too good to be true, you know? And she was a reporter, so I was worried she might just be trying to use you to get a story.”

There was no way that Kara would ever take advantage of Lena like that. Lena was about to explain that to Jess in great detail, but she was cut-off.

“I know, I know, Kara really is as good as she seems, even before you get to the whole superhero thing. You just can’t help being friends with her if you give her even the smallest chance. But I didn’t know her well at the time and I was worried she might do something to hurt you. I started doing some digging into her past and when I started tracing back her adoption records, I realized that they had been faked.

“After that I was convinced I was on to something and so I kept digging. It was then I realized that there was a pattern to Miss Danvers canceling appointments with you, or leaving a dinner early, and emergencies requiring Supergirl. Her disguise is actually pretty effective for all its simplicity, but only as long as you never consider Kara Danvers might be Supergirl. The second that thought enters your head, it is so obvious.”

“I can attest to that,” Lena agreed with a laugh.

“When I first realized that Kara was Supergirl, I was all set to storm into your office and warn you. But when I came into your office, she was already in there. It was one of those weeks where you had been putting in 16 hour days and I think it just caught up to you and you fell asleep on your keyboard again.

“She was setting you down on the sofa, and then, not realizing I was standing by the door, she used her speed to fly out the window. She was back in less than a second with a pillow and a blanket. I could see her face as she was spreading the blanket out over you and with the way she was looking at you, when she thought nobody was watching, I knew there was no way she was using you.”

“So that’s why you never told me?” Lena asked.

“Well… not exactly,” Jess admitted. “I knew her feelings for you were real, but I was still worried you might get hurt when you found out she had been lying about her identity. But then the next day, Supergirl was injured fighting those giant spiders that attacked the city and I saw how worried you were watching the fight on the news and I realized that you already knew.”

“And that’s why you never needed to tell me?” Lena questioned.

“Um, mostly.” Jess answered, looking down. “Apparently when I was digging into Kara’s adoption records, I set off some sort of alert. About a week after the giant spider incident, Agent Danvers showed up at my house. She knew I had found out Kara’s secret and she wasn’t happy about it.” Jess shuddered, clearly still a bit shaken at the memory. “She made me sign a bunch of NDAs and made some rather unsettling promises of pain and retribution if I ever told anyone Kara’s secret.

“Since you clearly knew the secret already, it didn’t seem like a good idea to risk pissing off Agent Danvers for no reason.”

“Aren’t you technically violating the NDA by talking to me about all this?” Lena asked.

Shrugging, Jess answered. “Technically, yes. But I saw the news footage of Supergirl’s fight with Reign. It was horrifying. And I’d really like to know if my friend is okay.”

“I don’t think okay is the right word to use.” Lena admitted. Since Jess already knew Kara’s identity, Lena saw no reason to lie. “Not yet, anyway. But she survived. She’s— She’s in a coma right now but Alex says she’s going to be okay. Right now, it’s just a matter of waiting for her to wake up. It was really bad though,” Lena admitted. “She almost died.

“And I can’t wake for her to wake up, you know.” Lena said as she struggled to keep her voice steady. “I miss her and I need her and she would be so much help with finding Sam,” Lena explained. “But— But at the same time, I’m scared for when she wakes up. Because when she does wake up, she’s going to want to face Reign again. She won’t want to take time to recover; she’ll want to get right back out there to try and stop Reign. While she’s in a coma, at least she’s safe. But if she has to face Reign again, I’m worried I’m worried I’ll lose her forever.”

“Then you help her, Lena.”

“How do I do that?”

“You are Lena freaking Luthor, quite possibly the smartest person in all of National City. You are rich, you are powerful and you are amazing at pretty much anything you put your mind to. Plus, you have like unlimited resources. You can come up with something,” Jess half-yelled, presumably trying to keep herself from being heard by Eve and Ruby on the other end of the house.

Jess was right. Lena wasn’t gong to let anyone hurt her family. She didn’t know yet how she was going to find Sam, save Kara and deal with this whole Reign situation, but she would be damned if she was going to fail.

“Thanks, Jess,” Lena admitted. “I think I needed that.”

“You’re welcome, Miss Luthor,” Jess replied with a smile.

“Come now, Jess. How long have we been friends? I think you can call me by my first name,” Lena chuckled.

“But you’re my boss,” Jess protested.

“You just used my first name like two minutes ago when you were yelling at me about solving my problems.”

“Oh, um, I guess I did. I’m sorry, that was so unprofessional of me. I should nev—” Jess’s protests were cut off as Lena wrapped her in a hug. “Oh, um, we’re hugging now! Okay,” Jess added, patting Lena awkwardly on the shoulder.

“Thank you,” Lena responded after releasing Jess from the hug. “I think your little lecture was just what I needed.”

“You’re welcome, Miss Luth— Lena,” Jess said only stumbling for a moment over the name change.

Lena knew she still had a long road ahead of her, but knowing she had friends who supported her and believed in her gave her a renewed sense of determination. She could do this. She just needed to figure out how.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know I said that we would get back at the DEO this chapter, but Lena spent a lot longer at Jess' than I first planned. But I realized that there's no way Jess wouldn't make it her business to dig into the Kara's background and then all that other stuff happened. But next chapter will be at the DEO for real!
> 
> Also, as I was writing this chapter, I realized that Jess is like the ultimate Supercorp fanfiction test question. If you wanted to know if someone reads fanfic but didn't want to ask them directly, you just need to see if they know who Jess is. 
> 
> As a character on the show, Jess has like 30 seconds of screentime in one episode so even a big fan of the show probably wouldn't know who she is from the show alone. Jess is basically a collective OC of the Supergirl fanfic community. Back in season 2, Lena didn't really get to interact with anyone other than Cadmus and Kara so I think that's why Jess was latched on to like she was. Lena needed someone she could talk to that was on her side but wasn't Kara.
> 
> It's pretty impressive when you think about it. Jess has become a beloved character with tons of development and even gets to be the lead in some stories. But anyone outside the fanfiction community probably has no idea who she is.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously on Where There's a Will: 
> 
> Lena made sure Ruby was safe with Jess and Eve. Jess gave Lena some words of encouragement and now Lena's heading back to the DEO, ready to save the day.

After making sure Ruby was safe, Lena returned to the DEO.

Someone, Alex would be Lena’s guess, must have given her security clearance since her last visit as this time when she got to the front desk she was given a few forms to sign, handed a keycard and then allowed to enter the facility without any sort of escort.

Lena’s first stop is the infirmary where Kara is being kept. Kara is still lying in the bed, unmoving, though Lena is relieved to see that her wounds look a hell of a lot better than they did a few hours earlier.

Alex is nowhere to be seen, but Maggie is curled up in a chair in the corner of the room. The woman has a blanket draped over her and seems to be asleep, but her eyes open the second that Lena enters the room. “Well, if it isn’t my favorite B&E accomplice,” Maggie says in way of greeting.

“Does Alex know I’m your favorite?” Lena smirks.

“What can I say,” Maggie shrugs. “You’ve got better toys than the DEO.”

Laughing, Lena responds. “Well, that’s what a multi-billion dollar R&D department will do for you.”

“Seriously, if you ever need any help testing out any other cool new gadgets, I’m your gal.”

“How is Kara doing?” Lena asked, walking over and gently taking her girlfriend’s hand. “She looks healthier,” in addition to the gashes starting to heal, now that she was closer she could see that Kara’s face also had a good deal more color than it had.

“She hasn’t woken up yet,” Maggie answered. “But her body is healing. Alex thinks there is a good chance she will wake up today. Once Vasquez came back, Alex left to go help with the Reign investigation, but a doctor comes by every half hour or so to check on Supergirl here.”

“Thanks for staying with Kara,” Lena said.

“Of course,” Maggie answered. “She’s family. And I know how much you and Alex want to be in here keeping watch over her with me. There’s not much else for me to do right now anyway. I’m great with solving mysterious and dealing with criminals but when it comes to stopping supervillains, I’m mostly just good for moral support.”

“It means a lot to me that you are here for her,” Lena responded. “You’re a good friend.”

“I still can’t believe Sam is Reign,” Maggie said. “I always thought she was a good egg,” Maggie sighed. “It’s hard to believe she was fooling us this whole time.”

“It wasn’t an act,” Lena responded. “Sam is a good. There has to be another explanation.”

“I liked her too,” Maggie admitted. “I can’t imagine what you are going through right now. And I get why you don’t want to accept that Sam is Reign. If someone told me that Alex was a secretly a monster, I wouldn’t believe it either, but you have to admit the evidence is pretty damning. She nearly killed Kara. And she has killed any criminal she’s been able to get her hands on. She was clearly hiding who she really is from us this whole time.”

“I appreciate that you are trying to look out for me,” Lena answered. “But I refuse to accept the woman I love is a monster. There has to be something more going on here. And so I’m going to find out what it is, and then I’m going to bring Sam home.”

“I hope you are right,” Maggie said with a sad smile, “But if you are wrong, Reign could kill you. Look what she was able to do to Kara.”

“I have to believe I’m right,” Lena countered. “The only person who knows Sam better than I do is Ruby, and she is refusing to accept this too. And you know that when Kara wakes up, she’s going to agree with me. She never gives up on someone she loves.”

“Just once it would be nice if Kara could meet another Kryptonian that wasn’t trying to kill her.”

“Wait, Reign’s a Kryptonian?” Lena asked, furrowing her brow. That made no sense.

“That’s what I’ve heard,” Maggie confirmed.

“I have to see Alex now!” Lena said, carefully letting go of Kara’s hand and heading for the door.

“What? Why?” Maggie called out to her.

Lena turned her head and spoke to Maggie as she kept leaving the room. “Because Sam’s definitely not a Kryptonian! And I can prove it!”

* * *

After stopping to ask a random agent for directions, Lena quickly found her way to a DEO lab. Winn was hunched over a keyboard with Alex hovering over his shoulder. Lena could see on Winn’s monitor that they were analyzing the location data that they had gotten from Sam’s phone.

“Agent Danvers!” Lena called out.

“Lena!” Alex answered spinning around. “I’m so sorry about Sam.”

“Actually that’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Lena responded. “Maggie told me that Reign is Kryptonian?”

“Yeah,” Alex nodded. “She’s got the standard Kryptonian power set, though she seems to be a hell of a lot stronger.”

“Sam isn’t Kryptonian,” Lena argued.

“I know that she seemed like she was human, but—”

Lena cut Alex off, “I don’t just mean she didn’t seem like a Krpytonian. I know for a fact she can’t be Kryptonian. Winn, can you hack into Metropolis General?”

“A server for a public hospital?” Winn scoffed. “Piece of cake.”

Alex, apparently content to follow Lena’s lead said, “Do it.”

“Sure,” Winn said. After typing for a few moments, Winn laughed, shaking his head “They are still running Windows 2000; it’s like they want to let people hack them.” Winn tapped a few more keys, “Okay, I’m in. What am I looking for?”

“Pull up the records for Samantha Arias.” Lena said, moving beside Winn so she could see the screen. “There should be an entry from about 7 years ago.”

“Got it,” Winn said, loading the file. “It says she was admitted on February 23rd with a broken tibia in her left leg.”

“If Sam was pretending to be human, couldn’t she have faked an injury?” Alex asked.

“Not this,” Lena responded. “Sam had been bugging me to go skiing with her all winter. I didn’t know how to ski and so I kept putting her off. She finally convinced me to go by promising that she would teach me.

“It turned out that she had never gone skiing either, but she wanted to impress me so she told me she knew how. She thought she could just watch tutorial videos on YouTube and that would be good enough,” Lena laughed. “It was not.”

“Our first trip down the mountain actually was a lot of fun,” Lena admitted. “I was feeling more confident after that first run, and I knew Sam was there to look out for me, so I challenged her to a race on our second run. That was a bad idea. We were about halfway down the hill when she lost control of her skis and she wiped out.

“When she wiped out, she flipped up in the air and she managed to get her leg caught under her as she landed. I still remember the awful crunch her leg made when it broke.” Lena flinched, recalling the sound.

“It was horrible; the bone went was poking through her skin and her ski pants. The snow all around her quickly turned bright red with blood. It took five minutes for anyone else to come down the same trail and spot us. And another 10 minutes until the EMTs arrived. I wrapped my jacket around her leg to try and stop the bleeding and I just sat there holding her hand. I had never felt so helpless. My best friend was lying there in agony and there was nothing I could do to help her. Even with all the horrors I’ve had to endure since, to this day, I still have nightmares about it.”

Lena felt herself tearing up as she thought back to that day, but she forced herself to focus on why she was telling this story right now. “But that’s not the important part of the story. The important part is Sam broke her leg from a simple fall while skiing. If she was really a Kryptonian, that shouldn’t be possible.”

“That’s not entirely true,” Alex countered. “I know you and Kara haven’t officially talked about the Supergirl thing so you probably aren’t aware, but if Kara exerts herself too much over a short enough period of time, she can temporarily lose her powers. And when she solar flares, she can get hurt just as easy as a human.”

“It’s true,” Winn confirms. “She actually even broke her arm the first time it happened.”

“But it’s temporary?” Lena asked. “How long is temporary?”

“It varies but somewhere between a few hours and a few days,” Alex replied.

“Sam’s leg was in a cast for months, and even after the cast came off, it take a while for her to get full mobility back in her leg.”

“Okay,” Alex said, raising her hands, “I’ll admit. It’s a good point. I can’t explain how that happened. But we’ve compared images of Sam to images of Reign and it’s definitely her. Sam’s proportions match Reign’s exactly.”

Winn switched to another window on his monitor and Lena could see the animation comparing the Sam’s frame to Reign’s. The overlay was indeed a perfect match.

“Then clearly something has happened to her,” Lena argued.

“You may be right,” Alex conceded. “We need more information in any case though. I’ve got a team getting ready right now; in about 15 minutes our team is heading out.”

“Heading where?”

“We used the DEO satellites to check out that place in the desert that Sam visited on December 3rd. Winn, can you pull up the images?”

The screen now showed an overhead view of the desert. There was a peculiar rock structure in the center of the screen. Alex continued, “We aren’t sure what it is exactly, but it looks a lot like the Fortress of Solitude.”

“I’m sorry, the what of what?” Lena said, raising her eyebrow.

“The Fortress of Solitude!” Winn answered. “It’s Superman and Supergirl’s super cool secret base in the Arctic. Kara still hasn’t taken me, even though I’m her bestest bud, but apparently it’s got all sort of cool Kryptonian technology.”

“So this structure could be Reign’s version of that?” Lena asked. If it was, it would definitely be a good place to look for answers.

“That’s what we are thinking,” Alex answered. “The good news is that it doesn’t look like Sam has come back to it since her first visit, or at least not when she had her phone with her, so we’re hoping it will be unguarded.”

“And if it isn’t?” Lena asked. A DEO team would be no match for Reign.

“Then we will deal with it,” Alex shrugged. “It’s always safer when we have Supergirl in our corner, but the reason this agency exists in the first place is to handle stuff like this.”

“Agent Danvers!” A voice called. Lena turned and saw that it was Agent Sheppard, the woman who had drugged and detained her and Maggie after their attempted break-in. “Director J’onn wants to speak with you. He said it’s urgent.”

“Sure,” Alex agreed. “Winn, put J’onn on the screen.”

“He’s not going to be mad I’m here, is he?” Lena wondered.

“Don’t worry, we’ve already discussed it,” Alex said, placing a reassuring hand on Lena’s arm.

A moment later, the screen that had been displaying a view of Reign’s base was replaced with an image of Hank Henshaw. No, not Hank Henshaw; this must be J’onn. He didn’t have any of the cybernetic enhancements that Hank Henshaw sported. Lena wasn’t quite sure how he looked so much like Hank Henshaw, but she could ask Alex about that at a later time. There were more important issues right now.

Lena had been so distracted by the man’s unexpected appearance that it took her a moment to realize that he had already begun speaking. “What’s your situation, Agent Danvers?”

“We’ve located a possible base of operations for Reign.” Alex replied. “I’ve assembled a team and we will be heading out to investigate momentarily.”

“That’s a negative, Agent. The president feels that our best course of action is to negotiate with Reign and see if she can be made into a DEO asset.”

“Negotiate with Reign? She’s a murderer!” Alex shouted, aghast. Lena was right there with her.

“Since Reign first appeared in National City, crime is down 27%. And there’s not a lot of sympathy in the general public for the drug dealers, arsonists, rapists and the other people she has killed. I’m told the latest polls show her at a 51% approval rating.”

“She almost killed Supergirl!” Alex shouted.

“Yes,” J’onn nodded. “Apparently her approval rating was actually in the mid-60s, but her fight with Supergirl has turned some people against Reign. I don’t like this any more than you, Agent Danvers, but the president is worried about looking weak on crime.”

“So what, we are supposed to just go invite Reign over for a nice cup of tea and see if she wants to work with us? Fuck that!” Alex slammed her fist down on the table. “My team and I are going to that base and then we are going to figure out a way to stop her.”

“This order comes directly from the president,” J’onn warned. “The DEO is not to do anything to antagonize Reign while we work to secure her cooperation. You and the rest of the team are ordered to stand down. The DEO will not be setting foot in that base.”

To Lena’s surprise, the anger drained from Alex and she simply nodded. “Understood, sir.”

Once the connection was ended, Lena turned to Alex. “That’s it? You’re just going to give up?”

“You heard the orders,” Alex replied.

“I did,” Lena allowed. “But I can’t believe you of all people would accept them. Checking out that base could be the key to saving Sam and stopping Reign.”

“Oh, we’re still checking out the base,” Alex said with a smirk.

“So you are defying the order then?” Lena questioned.

“Nope. J’onn’s message was clear. He made sure to emphasize that the DEO couldn’t send any agents to investigate the base; that would be a violation of the president’s orders.”

“But I’m not a DEO agent…” Lena said, realizing what Alex was getting at.

“Exactly,” Alex smiled. “You’re lucky too because I definitely wasn’t going to let you go on this mission before.”

“Okay, I’ll see about getting a helicopter and I’ll head out there,” Lena turned, heading for the door and pulling out her cellphone to arrange for her ride.

“Whoa,” Alex called, grabbing Lena’s arm. “Just because I can’t go, and the DEO can’t go, doesn’t mean we’re sending you in there by yourself.”

As much as Lena was willing to go to Reign’s base alone, she would really prefer to have some back-up. “What do you have in mind?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I struggled a bit with deciding just how popular Reign would be. Sadly there is definitely a sizeable segment of the population that would probably get behind the mass murder of criminals involved with serious crimes. How big a segment is difficult to say though. I figure short-term it's probably a lot higher than it would be in the long run though. 
> 
> On the TV front, no more _Supergirl_ for two months. But we do get _Legends of Tomorrow_ back in the meantime so it mostly balances out!


	9. Getting the Team Together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously on Where There's a Will:
> 
> Lena had a chat with Maggie and told Alex about the time Sam broke her leg.  
> J'onn sent a message from Washington. The President is ordering the DEO to not do anything to antagonize Reign for now and cancels her mission to investigate Reign's base. But Alex realizes he left them some wiggle room.

It was pretty much a given that Maggie would be coming with Lena to investigate the base. Maggie was married to a DEO agent of course, but she wasn’t actually employed be the DEO, and so she wasn’t bound by J’onn’s order. So Lena wasn’t at all surprised to see the detective waiting for her when she stepped into the underground parking lot.

Before Lena had time to wonder if they’d have any other help on this mission, a van pulled to a stop in front of them. Stepping out of the van were none other than Winn’s girlfriend, Lyra, and National City’s mysterious new superhero, Guardian.

“Hey,” Lena greeted with a wave, not really sure how to address Guardian. She figured that if Alex trusted Guardian, he must be okay, but she had yet to work with the hero herself. “Good to see you again, Lyra.”

“Hey, Lena!” Lyra greeted her with a high-five. Winn had explained to her the concept behind the high-five at a game night a couple months ago and Lyra had taken to them rather enthusiastically. “So I hear we are breaking into Reign’s base? I’ve never broken into a Kryptonian fortress before. This should be fun!”

“As long as Reign doesn’t show up and murder us all,” Guardian growled.

“You worry too much, Guardy,” Lyra shrugged. “They’ve yet to build something I can’t break in to.”

“What about that we had to break into that K’Hund prison?” Guardian countered.

“Okay, that was not my fault. How was I supposed to know that I show up on K’Hund cameras?” Lyra argued.

“Wait,” Lena interrupted, “You don’t show up on camera normally?”

“Nope,” Lyra smirked. “Valerians don’t show up on standard cameras. You could take your phone out right now and take a picture of me and you’d just get a picture of Guardian here standing by himself looking all lonely.”

“That must be a handy,” Lena said.

“Unfortunately it is much more handy for committing crime than it is for fighting it. It’s usually the bad guys that are doing the sneaking. Though it does mean I don’t need to wear a mask to keep my identity a secret.”

“Your ability would have come in handy last night when I needed to sneak into the DEO,” Lena mused.

“Wait, you aren’t going to make her your new B&E partner are you, Lena? Cause I called dibs!” Maggie pouted.

“Don’t worry, dear,” Lena reassured. “I promise you’re still my go to person when there’s breaking and entering required. Speaking of breaking and entering, we really should get going.”

“Sure thing,” Lyra answered. “Hop in.”

Lena climbed into the back of the van along with Maggie, Guardian and Lyra.

As the door slid shut behind them, Lena took a look around the van. A wall separated the back of the van from the front. The back of the van was filled with computer monitors, high tech gear and various crime-fighting gadgets. It wasn’t quite as high tech as what she had seen in the DEO but it was still quite impressive for what was apparently a civilian operation.

As the van started to pull out of the parking lot, Lena found a seat. There were only three chairs in the back, but Guardian said he preferred to stand, (Lena wasn’t sure if that was because it was tough to sit in his outfit, or if lurking in the corner was more in keeping with his mysterious hero persona).

“Wait,” Lena said, looking from Maggie to Lyra to Guardian and realizing something. “If we’re all back here, who is driving the van?”

“Hey, guys!” Winn says popping up on the monitor and waving.

“Winn, you are here too?”

“Nope,” Winn answered. “This is officially a non-DEO mission so Alex said as a DEO employee I couldn’t come with. I’m not even in the office any more. Alex said I could run comms for you guys, but I had to do so from home so I’m not using any DEO resources.” Winn pulled back from the camera so that everyone could see the wall behind him, which was filled with Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers paraphernalia.

“You have a first edition daggit model and you didn’t tell me?” Lena gasped. “Actually, that’s not important right now. But we’re definitely going to talk about that later. For now, if you aren’t driving then who is?”

“It’s a self-driving van! Pretty cool, eh?” Winn bragged. “I wrote the algorithm myself. Well part of it, at least. Lyra doesn’t have a driver’s license and Guardian can’t fit behind the steering wheel when he’s wearing his suit, so I used to drive. But it turns out that when there’s anything major going down, I have to be at the DEO and I can’t drive if I’m not there. So I made it so the van can drive itself!”

L-Corp was working on self-driving cars, but their prototypes still required the occasional human intervention, so Lena was impressed that Winn had apparently managed to perfect a fully automated vehicle. Perhaps when all this was over, she could ask him to share his algorithm with her team. “Most impressive, Mr. Schott. So the van will be able to take us to this mysterious base?”

“Yep,” Winn confirmed. “I programmed it to park about half a mile from the base though. If it has any sort of monitoring, we probably don’t want to drive all the way to the front door.”

“Makes sense,” Maggie agreed. “So we drive to this base, sneak in, and then what, try to find some information on Reign?”

“That’s pretty much it,” Winn confirmed. “If you look in the drawer under the monitor, you’ll find something that should help with that.”

Following Winn’s instructions, Lena opened the drawer and found a small rectangular box with a cord sticking out the end of it. When Lena looked at it more closely, she was surprised to see the cord had no connection port on the end of it; it seemed to just end. “Is this some sort of hard drive?” Lena wondered.

“That baby is actually a super-advanced alien computer. We found it when J’onn and Supergirl defeated Indigo. Try sticking the cord into the USB port on your phone,” Winn urged.

As Lena moved the cord into the USB port, she was surprised to see the end of the cord re-shape itself into a USB-C plug. Once she plugged the cord into the phone, the top of the box transformed from a plain grey plastic into a small touchscreen.

“All you have to do,” Winn explained, “Is plug that bad boy into any terminal and then use the touch screen interface to copy all the data on to the computer.”

“And it will work on a Kryptonian computer?” Lena wondered.

“It should,” Winn assured. “We haven’t tested it out on any Kryptonian tech, but we have plugged into a lot of different human and alien computer systems and in every case, it has worked. It’s also able to break any encryption as far as we can figure.”

“This should definitely help,” Lena admitted. “I must say, you have some impressive technology, Winn.”

“Only the best for the B-Team,” Winn boasted.

“B-Team?” Maggie questioned. “How come we have to be the B-Team? We’re the only team in the field right now, so wouldn’t that make us the A-Team?”

“Let’s face it,” Winn argued. “When it comes to the whole saving the world thing, Alex, J’onn and, of course, Kara get all the flashy jobs. But there always a lot of other stuff that needs to be done if the world is actually to be saved. And that’s where the B-Team comes in!”

“Okay,” Maggie relented, “But can’t we be something cooler than the B-Team?”

“This is actually a step up,” Lyra added, “When we first started working together, he wanted to call us the Super Friends.”

“I still think Super Friends is an awesome team name,” Winn countered with a pout.

“It is better than my current superhero name, Guardian’s unknown alien accomplice. Don’t get me wrong, I like the anonymity, but some recognition would be nice,” Lyra sighed.

“Tell you what, when all this is over, I’ll make sure that CatCo does an article on the Guardian’s mysterious teammate,” Lena promised. It seemed only fair that if Lyra was out there risking her life like any other hero that she got her fair share of the credit. Maybe she could talk to Jimmy, see if he had some ideas on how they could take some photos of Lyra in action. She’d need a mask, of course, but a few photos could go a long way. “I’ll even make sure they give you a cool name.”

“That would be awesome,” Lyra said, grabbing Lena in a tight hug.

“Happy to help, but could you maybe squeeze a little less…” Lena wheezed.

Abruptly releasing her from the hug, Lyra apologized, “Sorry, Lena. I sometimes forget how fragile you humans can be.”

“Don’t mention it,” Lena reassured. “I do have a question though,” Lena added as a thought occurred to her.

“Go for it,” Lyra replied.

“So you work with Guardian, and Winn, you also work with Guardian,” Lena added turning to address her friend on the monitor. “So that must make you,” Lena turned to Guardian who was leaning against the wall in the corner of the van, “Mr. Olsen.”

“I don’t know a Mr. Olsen,” Guardian answered.

“Come now, Jimmy,” Lena laughed. “Even if you weren’t Mr. Olsen, there’s no way you could work with Lyra or Winn on a regular basis and not know who James Olsen is.”

Lyra laughed, “She’s got you there.”

“Fine,” Guardian sighed, pulling off his helmet and revealing that Lena’s suspicion was correct. “It’ll be nice not to have to wear my helmet for the next couple hours anyway,” James added, his voice back to normal now that his helmet had been removed. “How did you figure it out?”

“Before today, I had no clue,” Lena admitted. “I must say it is rather impressive that you are able to run CatCo and be a superhero at the same time. I know how much Kara struggles with it, and her job is a lot more flexible.”

“It’s not easy,” James confirmed. “Lots of having to juggle meetings around. And not a whole lot of sleep most night. But Eve has proven to be a very capable assistant so that helps.”

“I’m assuming she knows your secret identity?” Lena asked.

“She figured it out within the first week,” James admitted, clearly a little embarrassed. “But I’m glad she did. I’m not sure I could have kept being Guardian and run CatCo at the same time without some backup.”

“I know a couple of assistants who I think are due a raise when all this is over,” Lena jested.

“That still doesn’t explain how you figured out that I’m Guardian.”

“Like I said, I had no idea that you were Guardian before today. But that’s because I didn’t know that Lyra or Winn were working with Guardian. The three are thick as thieves whenever we have any sort of group night. I knew there was no way that Winn and Lyra would be involved in some sort of crime fighting team without you,” Lena explained, having seen firsthand how close the three friends were, “And since you weren’t here as yourself, that only left the one possibility. That you are Guardian.”

“Well, one upside of all this drama with Reign, no more having to make awkward cover stories if an alien invasion happens during game night,” Winn joked.

“Winn is even worse than Kara when it comes to cover stories,” James agreed with a laugh.

“It’s true,” Lyra added. “The whole reason I found out about Guardian is because Winn tried to leave a date early because he ‘forgot to feed his dog.’”

“Hey,” Winn defended, “That was a perfectly valid excuse. Nobody wants to starve a dog.”

“Except you don’t actually have any pets,” Lyra pointed out. “I was worried he was just doing a really bad job of cheating on me; when I pushed him on his story, he caved pretty much instantly.”

“Yeah, well, you are scary when you are angry, okay,” Winn responded. “Besides it all worked out in the end cause now we get to be a crime fighting trio!”

“Well, Maggie and I are glad to have you watching our backs,” Lena replied.

“Yeah,” Maggie agreed, “This is a pretty cool team we’ve assembled here, even though I still think B-Team is a terrible name.”

Lena had to agree with Maggie’s assessment, both that the B-Team was a terrible team name, but more importantly, that she was glad to have so many friends who she could count on. Even when her girlfriends couldn’t be with her, and Alex stuck at the DEO, Lena still had a whole van load of people that were willing to risk their lives to help out in the mission to save Sam. It was kind of amazing. Lena vowed to make sure each and everyone one of them knew how much she appreciated them welcoming her into their little family.

But now was not the time for such sentiments. For now, the four (plus Winn via his video screen) kept their banter light and tried not to worry too much about what horrors they might face once they made it to Reign’s base.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lena must have gotten some coffee at some point as her deduction skills seem to be a bit more on point lately. Good for her!
> 
> When I first started outlining this story, this is where the Legion of Heroes would have come in (well, Mon-El and Imra, at least. Brainac 5 hadn't been introduced yet). But when I was figuring out what to do with Guardian and Lyra, that left Mon-El and Imra without a lot to do, so I reworked the timeline a bit and dropped the Legion of Heroes entirely). 
> 
> I definitely wanted to include Lyra in the story as I really like her character and I think there's a lot of interesting things that could be explored with her around. We don't really know if she's still around on the show or not at this point; she hasn't been seen or mentioned so far this season but there's been very little Guardian, very few group hangout moments, and Winn hasn't had any real subplots of his own yet so she could still be around. From the title, it sounds like the next episode (in mid-April) will have a lot to do with Winn so I'm hoping we will see Lyra in that episode (or if not, at least get confirmation that she is gone instead of having her just forget she exists like they did with poor Lucy).


	10. We're Going on an Adventure!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously on Where There's a Will: 
> 
> It was road trip time and Lena teamed up with Maggie, Lyra and James to head to Reign's mysterious base.

Reign’s fortress had looked pretty unintimidating when viewed from the overhead satellite images but now that it was looming large above them, it was a hell of a lot more impressive. Large jagged crystals jutted up from the ground the base. Lena had to crane her head up to see the tops of the spires. At the base of the crystals, there was a large, gapping maw, apparently the only entrance. At least the only one visible from their vantage point.

They were still a little over one hundred feet from the base, but had stopped to set up a jamming device Winn had provided. Turning it on should jam all frequencies within a mile of their location. It was a trade-off as they would also be cut-off from Winn and he wouldn’t be able warn them if he spotted a problem on the satellite feed. But it also meant that if they set off an alarm, they, hopefully, wouldn’t attract Reign’s attention. And no matter what other defenses the fortress might have, keeping Reign from showing up was definitely their top priority.

Once they had finished setting up the device, Lena spoke with Winn. “Okay, we are going to activate the jamming device.”

“Remember,” Winn warned, “since we have no idea what frequencies Reign might be using or how powerful any transmitters might be, the device needs to run on full power; it’ll jam all known radio communication frequencies. At that power, it’s only going to last two hours, so you will need to be well clear of the base before the jammer dies.”

“We got it,” James reassured, now back in his full Guardian ensemble.

“We will lose comms, but I’ll be watching as well as I can on the satellite. Off-the-record, Alex has a Vasquez with a team ready to deploy from the DEO’s desert base in case Reign does show up. It’s the closest base we have, but it’ll still take at least 20 minutes for them to get to you, and the President will probably arrest us me, Alex, Vasquez and the other DEO agents for defying orders if we do send the team out, so hopefully it won’t come to that.”

If Reign showed up, Lena doubted very much that the four of them would still be alive by the time the DEO team arrived, but she suspected that everyone knew that, Winn included, so she declined to say anything.

“Don’t worry, babe,” Lyra reassured, “We’ll be careful.”

“I know,” Winn answered. “Just… just be safe, okay? All of you.”

“We’ll contact you as soon as we are clear,” James reassured.

Confirming everyone was ready, Lena slid the key into the jamming device. Lena hesitated for just a moment before turning the key and activating the device. There was a harsh buzz and then their comms went dark. They were truly on their own now.

Lyra took point as they approached the base. It was her job to keep an eye out for any cameras that might set off an alarm. Fortunately, it appeared that there no cameras, at least not on the outside of the structure.

“It’s like they aren’t even concerned about security,” Maggie mused.

“It’s too easy,” Lyra responded. “There’s not even a door, let alone any sort of lock on the entrance. I don’t like it.” Lena didn’t like it either. As remote as this base was, and as arrogant as Reign seemed, there was no way she would leave her base undefended.

Regardless of what challenges may be still to come, they were able to enter the base. The entrance was large and cavernous, the ceiling had to be over a two hundred feet above their heads and the walls were composed of more large, jagged crystals, similar to, but slightly smaller than, the ones on the outside of the base. There was no question it was alien in origin, not just because Lena had never seen anything like it on Earth, but because there was no way a space this high and this large could be freestanding without support columns. On the far side of the room, there was a staircase leading downwards into the darkness.

“Uh, did we think to bring night vision goggles?” Maggie asked in a whisper.

Lena looked to Lyra and Guardian to see what tech they had brought along. “Don’t look at me,” Lyra protested quietly. “I can see in the dark.”

Lena turned to James. “My helmet has a night vision mode,” James shrugged.

Lena had a handful of L-Corp goodies in her bag, but no night vision goggles. “I have a couple of flashlights,” Lena offered. “But that’s not exactly stealthy.”

“Yeah,” James agreed. “We probably don’t want to use those unless we’ve already been spotted.”

And so that’s how Lena found herself clutching on to Lyra’s hand as they descended down into the absolute darkness, Maggie doing the same with Guardian.

Once they made it to the bottom of the stairs and Lena no longer had to concentrate on not tripping down stairs she couldn’t see, she focused on listening. She could hear the distant hum of machinery to her left. “I hear some sort of machine. We should make our way towards that.”

Given their location, the four kept quiet as they continued down what Lena could only assume was a hallway. They encountered a few branching paths, but they could hear machinery down each path so Lyra just picked a path at random. After a few minutes of walking, Lyra came to a halt. “There’s some sort of terminal just in front of me,” she explained.

“Do you see any sort of port?” Lena whispered.

“Yeah, there’s one along the bottom.”

“Okay,” Lena reached into her bag and after a bit of fumbling found Winn’s alien computer. “We just need to plug this in and we should be able to copy the data.”

Lyra took the device from Lena and after a moment she called back softly, “Got it!”

No sooner had Lyra plugged in the cable than the room was flooded with light. Lena’s heart leapt in her throat.

“What did I do?” Lyra shouted in panic.

Lena instinctively crouched, head darting around frantically for any sign of danger. The sudden light was too bright though and it took a moment for Lena’s eyes to adjust enough that she could see, squinting against the harsh brightness. Lena saw that the crystal walls themselves had lit up. They were standing in a room that looked much like a smaller version of the entry way. The walls only extended maybe thirty feet up, and the room wasn’t that much larger than the lobby at L-Corp. There was only one entrance to the room so Lena assumed that was the way they had come in. Despite the sudden burst of light, the sound of the room was unchanged and there was no sign of movement.

In front of them, Lena was able to see a circular console with a number of terminals that were now all displaying text in what Lena assumed was Kryptonian. She strained her ears, but other than the quiet hum of machinery the base remained silent.

“Maybe the base was in some sort of power-saving mode; when you plugged in the computer, it woke it up.” Lena mused. “That’s just a guess though; I must confess I don’t have a lot of experience with alien computer systems. It doesn’t sound like we’ve set any alarms off though so that’s a good thing. I don’t suppose any of you can read Kryptonian, can you?”

“Uh, a little,” Maggie answered. “Kara and Alex have been teaching me.”

“Can you read the terminals?” Lena asked.

The detective walked over to the nearest screen, running her finger along the screen as she attempted to read the words. “This is definitely the Kryptonian alphabet, but I only recognize a couple of these words, and even those aren’t quite the same. It must be another Krpytonian language.”

“I thought there was only one Kryptonian language,” Lena replied.

“Why would there only be one?” Maggie asked. “Is there only one Earth language?”

“You have a good point,” Lena conceded with a chuckle. “It doesn’t really help us at the moment though. Hopefully the DEO can translate this once we get back. It won’t do us any good to have a whole library of data on Reign if we can’t read it.”

Looking at Winn’s computer, Lena saw the touchscreen was once again available on the side. Lena wondered if it somehow knew what language to display in or if someone had set it to English. Thanks to a tutorial from Winn while they were on their way to the base, Lena was quickly able to begin copying all the data from the terminal.

“Looks like it’s going to take about twenty minutes to copy this data. Let’s just hope this has what we need,” Lena added. With luck, the base’s computers would be networked together and they were currently copying the contents of the entire network. Either way, they couldn’t risk sticking around looking for other terminals to access.

As the four stood and watched the progress bar begin its slow crawl to completion, Maggie leaned over to Lena and said, “You know, if this was a video game, this is the part where the alarm would go off and we’d have to fight off hordes of killer alien robots until the data finished copying.”

“Yeah, and if it was a TV show, you making that joke would be immediately followed up by those very robots showing up,” Lena laughed.

Fortunately this was not a video game nor a TV show, so the four friends spent the next twenty minutes in relative safety while the data finished copying without incident.

“Okay, we got it,” Lena said, disconnecting the computer from the terminal. “I’m not sure how we’ve managed to do this without setting off an alarm, but let’s get out of here while we can.”

The good news was that when they activated the terminal, it apparently lit up the entire facility. The bad news is that it had indeed set off some sort of alarm. When they took a step out of the room, they were greeted by an angry hologram.

“How dare you defile this sacred temple?” The holographic woman yelled. “To think that filthy humans would dare desecrate these halls!”

“Um, filthy Valerian here,” Lyra objected.

“It makes no matter what you are,” the hologram threatened. “Once Reign arrives, you will all be cleansed.”

“Sorry to burst your bubble,” Maggie cut in, “But you might have noticed you can’t get a hold of Reign. And by the time you do, we’ll be long gone. And it’s not like you can hurt us, you are just a hologram.”

The hologram seemed unfazed. “Our queen may not be here, but the robots shouldn’t have any problem handl a few measly humans and a Valerian.”

“Wait, there really are robots?” Maggie asked.

Maggie’s question was answered as a small phalanx of large and rather unfriendly looking robots stepped around the corner of the nearest hallway, the hologram apparently having had them wait there until they could make a suitably dramatic entrance. Each robot was about six-feet tall, metallic silver, with glowing yellow eyes. They were humanoid in shape.

A moment later, they were joined by a second phalanx, from the other end of the hallway. A quick count revealed a couple dozen robots in total.

Lena was the first to respond, pulling out a gun and firing three times at the nearest robot. The bullets plinked harmlessly off the robot and the robot turned to face her.

“Oh crap,” Lena sighed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is brought to you by the soundtrack for _The Apple_. For some reason I found myself listening to it on a loop while I was writing this chapter. Not really sure why as it doesn't match in subject matter, tone or theme, but it happened. Haha!
> 
> If you are into bizarre, over-the-top 80s musicals, I highly recommend checking out The Apple. It's about a young couple who's relationship is threatened when they are approached by the mysterious Mr. Boogalow, the head of the world's most powerful music company (and possibly also the literal devil!). I'm never really sure if I love it because it's so bad or I love it because it's so awesome, but either way the music is catchy.


	11. Too Many Robots

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously on Where There's a Will: 
> 
> Lena, Maggie, Lyra and Guardian (aka the B-Team) managed to enter Reign's base and copy a bunch of data before getting the attention of an angry hologram and a horde of robots.

Lena quickly took in her surroundings, hunting for a possible escape route. When they had originally entered this hallway, the lights had still been off so this was the first time Lena was actually seeing the hallway. Now that she could see it, Lena could see there were only three exits: the room they had just left, the hallway to the right and the hallway to the left, the latter two of which were filled with angry looking robots that were steadily advancing on their position. 

Suddenly the robot closest to Lena erupted in sparks and collapsed to the ground. “Nice!” Maggie shouted. She was holding some sort of gun that Lena had never seen before. 

“Is that what they carry at the NCPD these days?” Lena asked. 

“Nope,” Maggie answered, shaking her head and firing at another robot. “Alex let me borrow her alien gun. I can see why she likes it so much!” 

The gun was effective, but the robots were closing quickly. 

“Which way did we come from?” Lena asked. The room behind them was a dead-end and they didn’t want to go even deeper into the base, so their only hope was to try and get past the robots in the hallway leading to the exit. 

“This way,” Lyra said, gesturing to the hallway on the right. Unfortunately, Maggie had concentrated her fire on the hallway to the left, so there were now only eight robots that way, but there was still a full dozen in the direction they needed to go. 

“Lyra, let’s clear a path,” James suggested before charging towards the closet robot on the right hallway, shield raised in front of him. 

As James and Lyra engaged the robots to the right, Maggie did her best to keep the ones from the left from getting too close. If the robots managed to close in on both sides at once, they would almost certainly be able to overwhelm the three humans and the Valerian. 

Lena knew her gun was useless against the robots, and she hadn’t brought anything with more firepower. She had a few gadgets in her bag, but none of them seemed helpful at the moment. She had some limited hand-to-hand experience, but she doubted that would do much good against robots that bullets bounced off of. 

After a moment of looking around, Lena noticed that the hologram, that was still glaring at them, was being projected by a small crystal that was in the ceiling. She tried firing at the crystal and was satisfied when the crystal shattered in to a burst of powder, the hologram winking out indignantly. Lena hoped the robots would be less effective if the hologram couldn’t command them directly; at the very least, at least she got do something. 

It was a brutal fight, but after a few minutes, Lyra and Guardian had been able to disable almost half of the robots on the right path. Maggie had done the same on her side, but her gun was out of ammo. 

“I think this is the best chance we’re going to have,” Maggie called out. “We need to go now!” 

Guardian used his shield to charge two of the robots, pinning them against a wall while Lyra did a leg sweep that knocked another one down. “Go!” She yelled. 

Taking advantage of the gap that had been left, Maggie and Lena rushed past the robots, with Lyra following. Guardian gave the robots pinned against the wall an extra shove and ran behind them. 

The robots were big and strong, but fortunately not very fast and the quartet was easily able to outpace them. Thankfully Lyra had a good memory for directions and they were able to retrace their steps without any errors. After several minutes, they found themselves at the bottom of the stairs they had previously descended. 

As they made it to the top of the stairs, Guardian was hit with a laser blast and thrown back against the ceiling, landing back on the stairs in a heap. 

“You didn’t think I’d just let you leave, did you?” The hologram from earlier called. 

“James!” Lyra yelled, rushing over to where Guardian lay. The woman crouched over her comrade, looking for signs of injury. 

“I’m… I’m okay,” James said, his voice wheezy even with the voice modulator. “My shield took most of the impact. There’s some kind of laser cannon in the middle of the room. The hologram was clearly waiting for us to show up; the cannon is aimed at the top of the stairs.”

“Any ideas for how we take that out?” Lena asked. 

“I don’t suppose you’ve still got that invisibility cloak?” Maggie asked. 

Lena shook her head. There hadn’t been time to go back to the L-Corp lab to recharge the cloak. There’s no way that it was large enough to cover all four of them anyway though so even if it was here, it wouldn’t be enough. 

“Whatever we’re going to do, we have to do it fast,” Lyra warned. “I can hear the robots getting closer. They’ll be here soon.” 

“Guardian, did you get a look at the laser’s targeting systems? Do you think they operate in the visible light spectrum?” Lena asked as an idea came to mind. 

“I’m not sure,” Guardian admitted. “I only saw it for a split second before it hit me.” 

It wasn’t ideal, but it wasn’t like they had any other choices. “James, do you think you can run?” 

Lyra helped James gingerly to his feet. The man stretched tentatively and then gave a nod. “I think I might have cracked a rib, but I should be able to run.” 

“Good,” Lena responded. “I have a smoke bomb in my bag. I brought it with me when we tried to sneak into the DEO; I figured if the cloak hadn’t worked with two people, we could use the smoke bomb instead. Thankfully, I never took it out of my bag.

“I’ll set it off and then we are going to have to run for the exit. Hopefully the cannon won’t be able to target us with the room filled with smoke.” 

The clanking sound of the robots closing in on their position was now loud enough that Lena could hear it. There was no time to discuss other plans so everyone gave their agreement to Lena’s plan. 

After taking the smoke bomb out of her bag, Lena pulled back her arm and threw the device as far into the room as she could. It bounced off the floor a couple times before the hiss of the smoke escaping could be heard. Within seconds the smoke began wafting down the stairs. 

“Okay, go!” Lena shouted, signaling everyone to make for the exit. As they entered the room, they all split into different directions. The smoke was thick enough they couldn’t see each other once they split but, but if the cannon did get a glimpse of them, it was best that they weren’t bunched together. 

As Lena ran, she could hear the cannon firing multiple times, but there were no shouts of pain or of people being thrown against a wall so Lena could only assume everyone was still okay. It was far too risky to call out to anyone in case the cannon could hone in on the noise. 

Thankfully there was enough light coming in from the outside entrance that Lena was able to make it to the door without getting lost. When she hit the outside, she kept running, turning to the right to get out of the cannon’s possible line of fire. She was glad to see Maggie, Lyra and James were already hunched over to the right of the open doorway, Lyra and Maggie coughing a bit from the smoke inhalation. 

Not knowing if the robots would follow them outside or not, once Lena had made it out, the four of them made for the van. The robots were pretty slow so they were able to limit themselves to a brisk walk as they traversed the half-mile to where the van was waiting for them. 

When they made it back to the van, Lyra flung the doors open and the four of them piled in. As soon as she was inside, she pushed a few buttons on a panel by the door and the van began to drive, heading back to National City. 

Lena collapsed in the nearest chair. She really needed to put in more time at the gym if she was going to be getting mixed up in these sorts of adventures. 

Maggie and Lyra didn’t look much worse for wear, but James was clearly struggling a bit. He pulled his helmet off and then tried to remove his suit before gasping in pain. “Stupid ribs,” he grumbled. 

“Here, let me,” Lyra offered, gently helping to remove the armor. Once it was off, she guided the man to the closest chair. “Let me take a look,” she added, carefully unbuttoning his shirt. 

“Is everyone okay?” Winn’s voice called out as the man appeared on the viewscreen. “James! You’re hurt!”

“It’s not so bad,” James protested. “Just a minor disagreement with a laser cannon.”

“You would have been proud of him, babe,” Lyra added. “There were these killer robots down there and James ran up and rammed into a couple of them with his shield. Threw them right against the wall. It was pretty hot!” 

“What about when you did that spin kick to that one robot? It’s head was knocked clean off!” James countered. 

“I would have loved to have seen that,” Winn pouted. 

“Maybe when we get back, James and I can give you a private re-enactment?” Lyra asked, winking. 

“Wait, are you guys dating?” Lena asked the trio.

“Well, um—” Winn stammered. 

“Yep,” Lyra answered with a proud smile. 

“We were kind of keeping it quiet,” Winn admitted. “It’s still pretty new.” 

“Yeah, I’m not sure you really understand how keeping it quiet works,” Maggie joked. “But congratulations to the three of you, and to me, because Alex owes me $20 now!” 

“You were betting on our love lives?” Winn huffed. 

“Oh no,” Maggie corrected, “Alex and I figured that out right away; the three of you started dating on Thanksgiving, right? The bet was to see if any of our other friends would figure it out before you told us. I’ve seen how thirsty you get when Lyra and James are working out; someone else was bound to figure it out sooner or later.” 

“I get the same way seeing Supergirl in action,” Lena confessed. 

“Thank you,” Winn responded. “I’m glad someone understands.” 

“Oh, I get it too,” Maggie added. “I’m married to the most badass woman on the planet.” 

“How did the mission go?” Winn asked, seeming to remember the whole reason he was calling them. 

“Well other than the killer robots, the laser cannon and a pissed off hologram, I would say it was a success,” Lena responded. 

“You were able to get the data?” 

Nodding, Lena said, “We now have 3.7 petabytes of data from Reign’s base. The only problem is that it is in some Kryptonian language that none of us recognize.” 

“Hopefully Supergirl can read it, but even if she can’t, we do have access to a surprising array of Kyptonian tech,” Winn reassured. “We’ll figure this out.”

“Any word about Kara?” Lena asked tentatively. 

“I haven’t heard any— oh, hold on, I’m getting a call from Alex.” Winn said, picking up his phone. He and Alex exchanged a few words before Winn said, “Okay, I’m patching you in.” 

The viewscreen switched from showing only Winn to a splitscreen with Alex on the right side of the screen. “It’s Kara. She’s awake!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About time you woke up, Supergirl! We'll obviously see more of her next chapter. 
> 
> Fun fact: When I outlined this story, Maggie and Alex were together and obviously so were Kara, Lena and Sam, but there was nothing about a Jess/Eve relationship nor a Winn/Lyra/James relationship but these things just keep happening!


	12. A Donut a Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously on Where There's a Will: 
> 
> Lena and friends escape from Reign's lair with a computer full of hopefully useful information and Kara wakes up.

The trip back to National City seemed to take far longer than the trip to Reign’s base. They were traveling the same distance at the same speed, but now that she knew that Kara was awake, Lena felt the need to be there, to hold the woman and prove to herself that Kara was really okay. But no matter how hard she stared at her phone’s GPS, the miles ticked by ever so slowly. 

Alex had let Lena speak with Kara, but only for a moment. Kara was still pretty out of it, and Alex had insisted they let the hero rest.

“Hey, Lee,” Kara had greeted, voice still somewhat groggy. 

“Hey, baby,” Lena had said, her voice wet with tears. Lena believed Alex when she said Kara was going to wake up, but at that moment Lena realized a part of her had been terrified that she would never hear Kara’s voice again.

“I’m sorry I ruined Christmas,” Kara apologized. 

Lena couldn’t help but laugh. It was so like Kara to almost die and then apologize for ruining their plans. “I’m just glad you are awake, baby. It’s so good to hear your voice.” 

“It’s good to be heard,” Kara responded. “It sucks I missed out on Christmas though. On a scale of 1 to 10, how mad are Ruby and Sam at me for not being there to open presents?” Kara asked.

“Nobody’s mad at you, darling,” Lena reassured. “You get some rest okay? I’ll be there as soon as I can.” 

“Love you, Lee,” Kara said, sounding like she might be falling back asleep already. 

“I love you too, Kara,” Lena said, wishing she could be at Kara’s side sooner, even though she knew that once she saw Kara she would have to tell her about the Sam/Reign thing. That was not a conversation Lena was going to have over the phone. 

After speaking with Kara, Lena had briefed Alex on their mission. Alex and Winn were going to meet them once they arrived back at the DEO and get right on analyzing the data that had been copied. Alex seemed optimistic they would find something useful. Lena wanted to help analyze the data, but seeing Kara was more important. 

Finally, after what seemed like a hell of a lot longer than the two hours it actually took, the van did eventually make it back to the DEO headquarters. The van hadn’t even yet finished parking before Lena pulled the door open and leapt out. She practically shoved the computer into Winn’s hands and then she took off in a run to get to the medbay. 

When she arrived at the medbay, Kara was awake again, now sitting up and eating from a box of donuts she must have guilted Alex or Winn into getting for her. “Lena!” Kara called out. At least Lena was pretty sure that’s what she said. She had half a donut in her mouth so she couldn’t be certain.

One might be forgiven for thinking Lena was the one with superpowers given how quickly Lena crossed the room and wrapped her arms around her girlfriend. Lena tucked her head over Kara’s shoulder, too overwhelmed to do anything but hold the other woman. 

After several minutes had passed, Lena pulled back so she could face the other woman. “Oh,” Lena said, looking down at the space that was now between them. “I think I kind of crushed your donuts.” Kara had still been holding the box when Lena had thrown herself into the other woman’s arms. She hadn’t even realized that there had been a box of donuts being pushed into Kara’s chest at the time. The other woman’s hospital gown now covered in a generous amount of powdered sugar and the remnants of what must have been a jelly donut. 

“That’s okay,” Kara said, reaching down and picking up a donut that had fallen on to the bed. “They still taste just as good when they are smushed up,” Kara added, taking a large bite of the donut. 

“That’s disgusting,” Lena laughed. 

“You love it,” Kara teased. 

“I love you,” Lena responded. Kara could eat all the smushed-up donuts she wanted as far as Lena was concerned. The important thing was she was awake. “I saw you fall. I was so scared.”

“I love you too, babe. And don’t worry, it’s going to take more than a wannabe goth Kryptonian to stop me,” Kara tried to reassure Lena.

“Kara, you almost died! Hell, technically you did die. If the DEO hadn’t been there to give you medical attention…” It was hard to believe that the woman now looking at Lena with powdered sugar all over her face had almost died 24 hours earlier. 

“Okay, I’ll admit Reign is a tougher cookie than I gave her credit for,” Kara responded. “But I’ll get her next time. I just need a good night’s sleep and maybe a few more hours in a sunbed and I’ll be good as new.” 

“Kara, I can see your chart right here,” Lena said, plunking it out of its hanger by the bed. “You may have super-healing, but it’ll still take you more than a night to recover.” 

“Is it too much?” Kara asked, voice suddenly quiet. 

Lena was confused. “Is what too much?”

“Having to see the aftermath,” Kara said. “I know it’s hard dating a superhero; part of the reason I wanted to keep Supergirl separate from our relationship is so that you wouldn’t have to worry about all the injuries and the almost dying stuff.” 

“Did you seriously think I didn’t worry before?” Lena wondered. “Every time you go out there, I worry about what you might face.” 

“But it’s different having to see it,” Kara responded. “Before when I would get hurt during fight it would just mean I was late coming home. You’ve never had to see me injured before.” 

“You’ve ended up in a coma other times?” Lena gasped, her mind instantly searching for other times when Kara was away for longer than expected.

“No, no!” Kara rushed to reassure her girlfriend. “This was a first for me. But it’s certainly not the first time I’ve had some cuts and bruises. Normally when that happens I come to the DEO and heal up before coming home. I didn’t want you to have to deal with it.”

“I will admit Kara that it’s a lot more real for me now. Yeah, I worried about you before, but you are always so strong. I don’t mean because you have superpowers, though obviously that helps,” Lena added with a small laugh, “but you’re just so damned optimistic that it felt like nothing would ever be able to touch you. Not in the long run. So seeing you lying in a hospital bed, in a coma no less, was hard. But there’s no where I would rather be than by your side.

“We’re a team. Me, you, Sam and Ruby. So you don’t have to hide things from me just to keep me from worrying. We’re stronger when we work together. 

“I know that you’ve wanted to keep the Supergirl side of yourself out of our relationship, but you said yourself that we need to get all this out in the open. Teams don’t work when there are secrets.” 

“You are right,” Kara agreed with a nod. “No more secrets. And you were right, it will probably take me more than one night to recover. But I will be okay. Super-healing is super awesome.

“Right now though, I just want to go home and spend what is left of Christmas day with you, Sam and Ruby. Think you can help sneak me out of here?” 

Lena knew that she was going to have to tell Kara about Sam; after all, Lena had just said how important it was not to keep secrets from each other. And she was really wanted Kara’s help in figuring out how to get Sam back. It just sucked that because right now Kara was happy and now Lena was going to have to ruin that. 

“Lena, what’s wrong?” Kara asked, having picked up on Lena’s dread. “Is it about Sam and Ruby? Are they okay?” 

“Um, Ruby called me this morning because Sam didn’t come home last night.” 

“Sam’s missing?” Kara asked, jumping out of bed. “We have to find her!” 

Lena put her hand on Kara’s arm, stopping her from heading out the door. “There’s more. I’ll explain everything I know, I promise. Just lie back down please.” 

With Lena’s coaxing, Kara went back to her bed, but she chose to sit on the bed rather than lying back down. 

This was going to be hard, but Lena knew she needed to tell Kara. “After Ruby called me, Agent Vasquez and I went to Sam’s. We found Sam’s phone and to make a long story short, when we analyzed the location data on her phone, we saw that there were times when Sam was moving around the city much faster than a human could. And when we looked at where she went, we realized that wherever Reign has shown up, Sam was there at the exact same time.”

“What are you saying, Lena?” Kara asked, eyebrows furrowed.

“Kara, Sam is Reign.” 

“That’s absurd!” Kara shouted, back on her feet again. “How could you even suggest that our girlfriend is that monster?” 

“You have to admit the evidence is pretty damning.” 

“I can’t believe you, Lena,” Kara half-shouted. “I don’t care what the evidence says. I can’t believe that Sam is Reign. And I’m disappointed that apparently you can.” 

“Think about it, Kara,” Lena said, trying to remain calm. “It’s not just the phone data. Reign went after Morgan Edge right after we told Sam about Edge trying to kill me. And the DEO has analyzed video footage of Reign. Reign is a perfect match for Sam.” 

“If the evidence says that Sam is Reign, then the evidence has been faked!” Kara shouted. 

“Sweetie, I know it’s hard to accept,” Lena said gently. “I didn’t want to believe it either. But Sam is Reign.” 

“You know, it wasn’t that long ago that there was video evidence of you doing something awful. Everyone told me to accept the evidence, to believe that you were just another Luthor. But I knew it couldn’t be true. That there was no way that the woman I loved would try to kill me. When you really love someone, you believe in them. To hell with what the evidence says.

“Sam’s out there somewhere and she’s in trouble. We should be trying to find her. Not just buying into some bullshit evidence!” 

“Kara, if you would just think about this logically—” 

“I can’t do this right now,” Kara said. “I think you should go.” 

Lena ran her hand over her face in frustration. She needed to make Kara understand. They had to work together to fix this. “We need to talk about this, Kara.” 

“Fine, if you won’t go, I will,” Kara shouted. There was a rush of wind and then Lena found herself alone in an empty infirmary. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lena had a hard time believing Sam could be Reign too. Don't worry, I'm sure Kara and Lena will sort things out soon. 
> 
> Also, in the next chapter, we're going to get some Kara POV! Huzzah!
> 
> This week in inappropriate music to listen to while writing this story, it was the Friday the 13th Part VI soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzB3qoJ7-RM&list=PL7v_KFM4xhO0ODrrTM5i2xClZ3tAp3MFZ
> 
> A very fun entry in the franchise but no real connection to our story. Though I have occasionally toyed with the idea of writing a Friday the 13th Supercorp no powers AU. Kara and her friends could be camp counselors and maybe Lena is the camp owner? The challenge is it would be very hard to do a proper Friday the 13th story without killing off a good number of the Superfriends (and then it'd be all sad and angsty instead of fun).


	13. A Little More Conversation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously on Where There's a Will: 
> 
> Kara finally woke up! But when she was told Reign and Sam were one and the Sam, she refused to believe it and set off alone to try and save her girlfriend.

After leaving the infirmary, Kara’s first instinct was to take flight. To get out into National City and find Sam herself. If nobody else was going to help, she’d just have to save Sam herself. The plan was almost immediately thwarted though when she realized that the burst of speed she used when she left Lena behind was pretty much the extent of the powers she was capable of at the moment. Kara tried to fly, but she was only able to hover a few inches off the ground.

There was no way Alex would clear her to just walk out the door in her current condition, so instead Kara found herself on the DEO’s thinking balcony (as she had come to know it). She liked to come here to think, and it turned out she could really use the support of leaning against the railing. She really should probably still be in bed.

Kara didn’t know why everyone always fell for the whole frame one of us the bad guy ploy. It was like such a cliche. Supervillainy 101. Yet apparently a few doctored files and even Lena was ready to buy in to the idea that their girlfriend was somehow a crazed Kryptonian bent on destruction.

After her battle with Reign, Kara knew she was going to need all the help she could get if they were going to figure out a way to actually defeat her foe. And now instead of her friends and her girlfriend helping her to figure out what to do, Kara was all alone in trying to figure out a way to save Sam from Reign’s clutches.

Kara briefly considered reaching out to Ruby. Kara knew that Ruby would never lose faith in her mom. It would be nice to talk to someone else who still believed in Sam. But she couldn’t really go to a thirteen year old for help; not when Reign was involved. Ruby was too much like Kara. She’d want to try and help. And that was far too dangerous.

Kara wondered if she could convince Winn to give her one of the yellow sun grenades. It wouldn’t be as good as spending the night in a sunbed recuperating, but it would probably be enough to kick her flight back into gear, at least for a little while. Then she could fly around the city and listen for Sam’s heartbeat.

“I figured I would find you here,” Alex said, leaning on the railing beside her sister.

“Why does everyone have to be so stupid?” Kara sighed. “We’ve done this before. You guys are all ‘your girlfriend is evil, Kara!’ and nobody believes me when I say that I know she’s innocent. We go through all the fighting and heartache and at the end of the day, it turns out I’m right. Can’t we just skip the fighting part and go straight to working together,” Kara pleaded. “I just want my girlfriend and my sister to help me when my other girlfriend is kidnapped. Is that too much to ask?”

“We always have your back, Kara.”

“It doesn’t feel that way.”

“It’s true,” Alex said, putting her arm around her sister. “You are going to figure this out and find a way to save Sam. And do you know how I know that?”

When Kara shook her head, Alex continued, “Do you know what Lena was doing while you were in a coma?” Alex asked.

“Finding enough phony evidence to make her think Sam is Reign, apparently.” Kara responded with a pout.

Alex slapped Kara in the back of the head. “Ow! What was that for?”

Grimacing at the pain (it was generally not a good idea to hit a Kryptonian, even one that wasn’t at full power), Alex responded, “For you being an idiot. From the very start Lena has been sure that Sam isn’t evil; that there’s more going on. She’s just as convinced as you are that Sam could never be capable of the things that Reign has done. She spent a good chunk of the day convincing us that she’s right. That we need to help Sam. And while you were lying in bed, being all lazy with your coma business, she risked her life to go to Reign’s hideout so she could try and find something we could use to save Sam.”

Of course Lena hadn’t given up. Lena was a fighter. She didn’t give up on the people she believed in. Kara should have known better than to just assume she had. Kara had been so wrapped up in protecting Sam that she hadn’t even given Lena a chance to finish explaining. “You’re right. I am an idiot.”

“I know you were just worried about Sam, but right now you should probably go apologize to Lena. She’s been through a lot in the last 24 hours. She needs you just as much as you need her.”

“Yeah,” Kara nodded. “Thanks, Alex. When did you get to be so wise?”

“All part of being an older sister,” Alex chuckled. “Now go talk to your girl and then get the hell back to bed. A bed you should never have left in the first place while you are still healing, I might add. The only reason I haven’t dragged you back to the infirmary myself is that I know you and Lena will both be miserable until you make things right.”

Kara pushed off the railing and turned to go but then turned back to her sister, “As an older sister, can you do one other thing for me?”

“Anything,” Alex responded.

“Um, can you help me get to Lena? I’m actually feeling a little light-headed right now. I think you were right about the whole I shouldn’t have gotten out of bed thing.”

* * *

After Kara’s disappearance from the infirmary, Lena’s first instinct had been to panic. Kara was going to try and find Sam herself and she was only a couple hours removed from being a coma. Kara definitely wasn’t well enough to go flying around the city. What if she ran into Reign or some other supervillain eager to take advantage of the hero’s weakened state?

Lena took off down the hall, grabbing the first DEO agent she could find and demanding to know where Alex Danvers was. She just hoped that Alex could convince Kara to come back to the DEO before something happened.

Following the directions the flustered young agent had given her, Lena soon found herself in the same DEO lab that she had visited earlier in the day. Alex and Winn were once again working away, this time the monitors were displaying Kryptonian text. Presumably some of the data they had pulled from Reign’s base.

“Alex! Kara’s gone!” Lena cried out, as soon as she saw the agent. “I told her about Sam being Reign. She was sure I was wrong and that Sam is in danger. I tried to explain, but she just left.”

“Goddammit!” Alex swore. “Winn, pull up Supergirl’s tracker.”

“On it,” Winn responded, switching his monitor from the Kryptonian text to some sort of tracking program. “Looks like she’s still in the building.”

“Thank God,” Alex sighed. “She’s probably on the thinking balcony.”

Lena wanted to go talk to Kara, to explain to her that she still believed in Sam, but the last time she tried to do that, Kara had stormed off. Clearly she didn’t want to talk to Lena. Shaking her head, Lena responded, “She doesn’t want to talk to me.”

“Kara always wants to talk to you,” Winn countered, looking up from his computer.

“Not this time,” Lena sighed. “I’ll just make things worse.”

“Fine, I’ll go talk to her,” Alex responded, getting up from her desk. “For the record though, Winn’s right. I know my sister. She’s just freaking out because she’s worried about Sam. If you just talk to her, I’m sure you could get her to listen.”

Lena shook her head again. “What if I just make it worse? At least she hasn’t actually left the building yet. She doesn’t want to talk to me. If I try, that might be enough to make her actually leave. And she’s in no condition to be out there right now.”

“Okay, fine. Insist on being an idiot. I’ll go sort out your love life for you,” Alex joked as she left the room.

After a few moments of awkward silence, Winn spoke up, “So I figure we can just sit here quietly until they get back or…”

Without hesitating, Lena responded, “Option two, please.” She could really use a distraction right now.

“Good choice,” Winn replied, turning back to his computer, “Translating Kryptonian texts it is!”

“Is this the—”

“The files you guys recovered from Reign’s base? Yep. There is a ton of data here. The problem is, it’s all in some Kryptonian language we don’t know.”

“Maggie mentioned that it wasn’t the same Kryptonian language that Kara speaks,” Lena said, looking at the text on the screen. What she wouldn’t give for some sort of universal translator right now.

“She’s right,” Winn confirmed. “But the language has some similarity to Kara’s language. Look at this,” Winn brought up a menu and applied a new setting. The text remained largely untranslated but a few words were now in English.

“It is kind of like English and Spanish,” Winn explained. “The two languages are different but they share some roots and are derived from some of the same sources. So some English and Spanish words can be very similar. So as an English speaker, even if you don’t speak any Spanish, you can still understand a good number of Spanish words.”

“Like bicycle and bicileta or map and mapa,” Lena responded, seeing where he was going.

“Exactly! So here we have a fuzzy translation of Kara’s language to English. If the word matches or is close to a known word, we’ve translated it to English. Unfortunately, English and Spanish share a lot more common words than these two languages do. We’re only able to translate less than 10% of this. And chances are some of it is wrong.”

Lena nodded. Sometimes words in two different languages could be similar or even identical but have completely different meanings. They would need to find a more comprehensive source if they wanted a full and accurate translation. “What have you learned so far?”

“A lot of this data seems to be for executable programs, video files, that sort of thing. We won’t be able to run or play any of that without a better understanding of the language and the software being used. But we have found some text files as well. This one,” Winn said, pulling up a text file, “Mentions something about a ‘world-killer.’ And something about a ‘Chameleon protocol.’ It might have to do with Reign. Then again, it could be just some archaic history of Krypton. Or maybe it’s a bad translation of a chocolate chip cookie recipe. It’s hard to be sure.”

The two friends reviewed a few other files that Winn thought might be relevant but with so little translated it was hard to draw any conclusions. They had gone through a number of files when there was a soft cough behind them.

Lena turned to see Kara, her arm around Alex, apparently leaning on her sister for support. From the sheepish expression on her face, Lena guessed that Alex’s conversation must have helped. The fact Kara was not able to stand on her own was more than a little worrying.

“Darling, are you okay?” Lena said, rushing to her girlfriend’s side.

“Just a little dizzy,” Kara admitted.

“I told her I could go get you,” Alex added, “But she insisted on coming here herself.”

“Can we talk?” Kara asked Lena.

“Of course,” Lena replied softly.

“Take her back to the infirmary,” Alex suggested. “She needs some sunlight, and I’m guessing you could both use some rest.”

“Of course,” Lena replied, before wrapping Kara’s other arm around her shoulder. Taking over for Alex, Lena helped Kara as the two slowly made their way back to the infirmary. Kara tried to speak but Lena asked her to wait until Kara was safely back in bed. Lena didn’t want Kara to have to exert herself anymore than she already was.

Kara was clearly exhausted by the time they made it to the infirmary; Lena was tempted to try and get the other woman to just go to sleep, but she knew that Kara wouldn’t sleep until they had a chance to talk.

“I’m sorry I doubted you,” Kara said, eyes watering. “Alex told me everything that has happened since my fight with Reign. It’s just, like I said, I have been through this before, back when you were framed for stealing Kryptonite. We weren’t actually together yet, but I think I was already in love with you, though it still took me a while to figure that out. And nobody believed me when I said you were innocent. So when all the sudden it’s the other woman I love being accused of villainy, it was like reliving a nightmare. I thought nobody believed me and I was going to have to go it alone again.

“But,” Kara paused, taking Lena’s hand in her own, “You always believe in me. And in Sam. I should have let you finish explaining. You were trying to tell me that you wanted to help save Sam too, and I was just too scared to listen.”

“It’s okay, babe,” Lena tried to reassure her girlfriend.

“It’s not okay,” Kara protested. “I shouldn’t have jumped the gun like that. If my powers weren’t still so weak, I wouldn’t have been here to have sense talked into me. I’d be flying around National City right now, without even a shred of a plan.”

“You just want to save Sam,” Lena responded. “Believe me, I get it. I want to save her too. We all do. And we will, but right now I think we both need some rest.”

“Stay with me?” Kara pleaded.

“I would love to, but not all of us are able to sleep with the sun blasting in our eyes,” Lena chuckled, gesturing to the harsh light of Kara’s sunbed. In other circumstances, she might have just foregone sleep to stay in Kara’s arms for the night. But Lena was running on only a few hours of sleep herself and it had been a long day. She really needed some rest so she could do her best to help find Sam. Maybe she could ask Alex about getting a cot brought in.

Oddly enough, Kara responded to Lena’s statement with a grin. “When Maggie was here earlier, she said she had a feeling this might come up. She gave me this!” Kara reached over on to the nightstand by her bed and triumphantly held up a black sleep mask.

It still wouldn’t exactly be the comfiest of beds. The room was rather warm and the bed wasn’t really big enough for two people, but for Lena spending the night cuddled in Kara’s arms would be worth a few discomforts.

“Sometimes I think that Maggie’s the real genius around here,” Lena joked before settling in to bed with Kara.

“I love you, Lee,” Kara mumbled, already drifting off to sleep.

“And I love you,” Lena replied, kissing her girlfriend gently on the forehead.

As she fell asleep, Lena knew there were still a lot of obstacles ahead of them. But Lena would take the victories that they’d had so far. Tomorrow they would hopefully find something that would help them free Sam and reunite their family. Now that she and Kara were together, the obstacles didn’t seem quite so insurmountable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Funny how things always seem to work much better when people take the time to communicate. Haha. 
> 
> We will probably see the occasional Kara POV now that she's awake and able to contribute to the plot on her own.


	14. Put On Your Decoder Ring

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously on Where There's a Will:
> 
> Alex and Kara had a nice moment, then Lena and Kara got back on the same page and decided to have a nap.
> 
> This chapter is where we start getting very AU as far as Reign's origins and rules. This was all planned after the mid-season finale so it doesn't necessarily line up with stuff that was established later in the season.

It had only been a little after 9 PM when Kara and Lena had gone to sleep, but with Kara still recovering from her injuries and the lack of sleep Lena had the night before combined with everything that had happened in the last day, the two women managed to sleep until the ringing of Lena’s phone woke them both up around 10 AM. 

Lena might have been tempted to ignore the phone on the nightstand and just go back to sleep, but any thoughts of doing so were instantly dispelled when she lifted her sleep mask to look at the screen and saw that it was Ruby calling. Ruby wasn’t calling the emergency number this time, but Lena still wanted to speak with her so she grabbed the phone. 

Or rather she tried to grab the phone. It turned out that Kara was just as anxious to speak with Ruby as Lena was. And unlike Lena, Kara had super speed, so she managed to answer the phone before Lena had moved her arm more than a couple of inches. 

“Ruby, hey!” Kara called out.

At Lena’s gesture, Kara turned on the speaker phone, “Hey, Kara!” Ruby’s voice sounded from the phone. “Find a good Christmas tree?” 

“It’s not nice to tease, Rubes,” Lena protested with a laugh. 

“It’s good to hear from you, Kara” Ruby added. “Lena wouldn’t tell me where you were yesterday. She tried making up a crazy story about a Christmas tree, but even after I called her on it, she said she couldn’t tell me where you were. I was worried something might have happened to you.” 

Lena hadn’t thought to warn Kara about her discussion with Ruby, but Kara took it in stride. “It’s a long story, sweetie. But I would love to tell you all about it after we find your mom.” 

“That’s why I am calling,” Ruby responded. “Have— Have you had any luck yet?” 

“We haven’t found her yet,” Lena admitted. “But we have a really good lead. We are working with Supergirl and her friends; we are all doing everything we can to find her.” 

“Supergirl is okay then?” Ruby asked. “I saw a news story about her fight with Reign. It looked pretty bad.” 

“She’s not quite 100%,” Kara responded. “But she’s healing and she’s anxious to help.” 

“She won’t hurt my mom will she?” Ruby asked quietly. “I mean, Supergirl stops the bad guys. And if my mom really is Reign, doesn’t that mean Supergirl is going to have to stop her?” 

“Supergirl would never hurt your mom, Ruby,” Kara replied. “You have my word on that. Supergirl only wants to save her.” 

“Okay, good,” Ruby responded, seemingly placated, at least for the moment. 

The three women talked for several more minutes. Ruby confirmed that things were going well at Jess’ place, but she missed them and her mom. Kara and Lena promised to let Ruby know as soon as they were able to find Sam. 

Kara and Lena made quick use of the DEO’s shower facilities giving Lena a chance to change into some clean clothes and for Kara to exchange her hospital gown for one of her Supergirl outfits. They then made a stop at the DEO cafeteria, mostly for Kara’s benefit. After they finished eating, they went back to the lab, where Alex and Winn were still working away. At some point Maggie had joined them as well.

“Did either of you sleep at all last night?” Lena asked, raising her eyebrow. Both Winn and Alex were wearing the same clothes they had been wearing the night before. 

“We got a few hours,” Alex replied with a shrug. “Coffee did the rest.” 

“Though let me just say that the DEO cots suck!” Winn added. 

“Agreed,” Maggie concurred. “Alex and I tried pushing a couple of them together, but my back is still not very happy with me.” 

“At least you didn’t sleep with a facsimile of the sun bearing down on you all night,” Lena joked before something occurred to her. “Come to think of it, shouldn’t I have a horrible sunburn? I was so tired last night that it never even occurred to me, but if the sunbed mimics the output of the Earth’s sun, I should have at least second-degree burns by now.” 

“You can thank Alex for that,” Kara boasted, smiling at her sister. “Whenever I have a really rough fight, I like to have someone to cuddle with. Until last night, that was always Alex. Not that I’m replacing you, Alex,” Kara’s eyes widened in alarm. “It’s just that I really wanted to cuddle with Lena! You’re still the world’s best sister!” 

Alex laughed her off, “Don’t worry, Kara.” 

“Anyway, the first time I had Alex stay with me, she ended up with a pretty bad sunburn even though she had put on sunscreen. So she developed a special filter for the sunbed lights. It blocks out almost all of the UV light without compromising any of the energy my cells absorb.”

“Well then, thank you, Alex,” Lena said, nodding her head towards the woman in gratitude. “If it wasn’t for you, I’d probably be needing to spend the next few weeks in the hospital recovering from some very painful burns.” 

“Any luck with Reign’s computer?” Kara asked, shifting their conversation to more pressing matters. 

“We figured out a way to interface the DEO computers with the hologram of your mom,” Winn answered. “The hologram recognized the language. Apparently, it’s some ancient Kryptonian language. It took most of the night for the hologram to translate the data.”

“It worked though?” Lena asked, both excited and a little scared. This could be the break they had been working for. Or it could be a complete dead-end. 

“Hell yeah, it did!” Winn confirmed. 

“We’re just reviewing the data now,” Alex added. 

Kara and Lena were, of course, happy to help and the five of them, along with a few other DEO agents quickly went to work on analyzing the data. It only took a few minutes before Winn yelled, “I think I’ve got something!” 

“What have you got?” Alex asked, sliding her chair over to his desk. 

“It’s the file I was showing Lena yesterday. The one that was talking about the ‘world-killer.’ It goes into detail about the Chameleon Protocol. The world-killers are sent to the alien planets as infants. The Chameleon Protocol is supposed to allow them to appear to be a native of the planet; they take on the biology of whatever the planet’s dominant species is. I guess they figured a baby would have a pretty tough time taking over the world, even with super powers.

“So you could run whatever test you might want to on them…” Alex surmised. 

“And they would be indistinguishable from any other human,” Winn concluded. “At least if they were raised on Earth.”

Continuing to read from the screen, Winn added, “And then when they reach the adulthood, ‘the Chameleon Protocol is deleted and the world-killer’s core programming is brought online.’ Huh,” Winn pondered, “it almost sounds like they are talking about—” 

“An AI!” Lena jumped in, seeing what Winn was saying.

“Holy crap, Sam’s a Cylon!” Winn responded. 

“A what now?” Alex asked. 

“A Cylon!” Winn repeated. At Alex’s confused stare, he continued, “You know, a Cylon. But like one of the sleeper agent ones that has no idea they are a Cylon until they’re programming is activated.”

“So she’s not a Kryptonian then?” Alex asked. 

“You seriously don’t know what a Cylon is?” Maggie asked. “Wow, and here I thought you were a nerd, Danvers.” 

“I’m not sure if I should feel insulted right now or not,” Alex replied. 

“Um, I also don’t know what a Cylon is,” Kara added. 

Turning to her girlfriend, Lena explained. “It’s from a TV show called Battlestar Galactica. The Cylons were artificial life forms that looked human, even when examined by doctors.”

“Well, actually,” Winn interrupted, “In the original series, there were no human Cylons, they only had—”

“Maybe not the point right now, dude,” Maggie said, cutting Winn off before he could launch into what would likely have been a lengthy discussion of the differences between the original series and the reboot. “Please continue, Lena.”

In more mundane circumstances, Lena would have relished the chance to discuss her opinions on the original series versus the reboot, but Maggie was right, this definitely wasn’t the time for it so she continued. “In some cases, the humanoid Cylons would have no idea they were Cylons. They thought they were just regular humans. But they could be triggered to take actions their human personality would never condone, like sabotaging the ship.” 

“So what you are saying then is that Sam and Reign are basically two distinct entities inhabiting the same body? Sam’s the Chameleon Protocol and Reign’s the core programming?” Alex asked. 

“It kind of sounds that way,” Lena said. 

“Does— does that mean Sam is gone? If she is the Chameleon Protocol and the Chameleon Protocol is deleted when the core programing comes online…” Kara asked. 

Her first instinct was just to deny the possibility that Sam could be gone, but Lena was trying to look at this objectively so she considered this for a moment before responding. “I don’t think so. It sounds like Sam should have been erased when Reign emerged. But Reign has been active for weeks now and up until two days ago, we never even noticed anything was amiss with Sam.” 

“Could Reign have been playing the role of Sam?” Winn speculated. “She might have access to Sam’s memories.” 

“No way,” Kara said, shaking her head emphatically. “I’ve talked to Reign. She is so cold and… angry. There’s no way she could convincingly pull enough playing a loving mother and supportive girlfriend. Playing Sam the CFO of a major corporation, maybe, but not Sam the person.”

“So somehow even though Reign became active, Sam wasn’t deleted,” Winn speculated. “These last few weeks, when Sam was in control, was that because Reign was just in hiding? Or is Sam somehow able to force Reign into submission?”

Alex jumped in, “According to this file, Reign should have emerged as soon as Sam was an adult, right? But that didn’t happen. Reign didn’t show up until years after she was supposed to.” 

“What if Sam grew beyond the bounds of her original programming?” Lena wondered. “By the time she was an adult, Ruby was a toddler. Sam was estranged from her mom, and she didn’t have any other family. If Reign had emerged back then, Ruby wouldn’t have had anybody to care for her.”

“Sam would never leave Ruby on her own!” Kara replied. 

Lena knew Kara was right. Sam would never do anything to threaten Ruby. “Maybe Sam’s devotion to Ruby allowed her to keep Reign bottled up, without even knowing she was doing so. She was just a mom determined not to leave her child alone.” 

“Maybe,” Alex allowed, “But if Sam has been able to keep Reign contained all these years, why has Reign emerged now?”

“Oh, Rao!” Kara shouted, a look of horror dawning on her face. “This is all our fault!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Learning about a problem is the first step towards solving it. Hopefully our team can come up with a plan soon!
> 
> In other news, for some reason I seem to keep listening to random soundtracks of 80s movies while I'm writing this story. This time around, it's the soundtrack for Flash Gordon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3KTB1N9Deo
> 
> This one is actually a little closer to Supergirl than the last two. Flash Gordon is also a comic character, plus he's actually pretty similar to Kara in a lot of ways. Sure, he's human, but he's an athletic character with an upbeat attitude who defends the Earth from an alien invader and inspires those around him to rise up and be better people, just like Supergirl does. 
> 
> It would actually be surprisingly easy to make a Supergirl/Flash Gordon Supercorp AU. Kara would take the Flash Gordon role, Winn would be Zarkov, Lena takes on Princess Aura (Ming's daughter) and you have Lillian as Ming. Hank Henshaw gets the Klytus role. Then you have J'onn and Mon-El in the Prince Barin and Prince Vultan roles (or vice-versa). Really the only hard character that doesn't have an easy parallel is Dale. Not sure who would be best to put in her role.


	15. A Plan Revealed?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously on Where There's a Will: 
> 
> The gang learned that Sam and Reign are basically two different identities of an artificial life form and Kara thinks she knows why Reign has emerged after all this time.

“Darling, what are you talking about?” Lena asked. “Did something happen with Sam and the DEO?” As far as Lena knew, Sam hadn’t really interacted with the DEO. 

“No,” Kara shook her head, tears falling down her face. “Not the DEO us. Us us. It’s our fault. It’s— it’s all our fault.”

As Kara dissolved into full-on sobs, Lena held the other woman in her arms. She exchanged worried looks with Winn, Alex and Maggie; it was clear none of them had any idea what had upset her girlfriend either. 

From past experience, on the thankfully rare occasions that Kara got really upset like this, Lena knew that Kara wouldn’t be capable of holding a conversation until she cried herself out, so Lena gently coaxed the superhero to sit on a nearby cot (presumably leftover from Winn, Alex and Maggie’s impromptu sleepover/research session the night before). Lena sat beside her and when Kara leaned over, she cradled the woman’s head in her lap. Gently stroking her hair, Lena whispered calming reassurances to the hero.

While Lena was comforting Kara, she half-heard Maggie dragging Winn off to the cafeteria, presumably to give them some privacy. 

Alex, for her part, came over to help comfort her sister. There really wasn’t room for all three of them on the cot, so Alex took a seat on the floor, her back against the cot, sitting beside Lena’s legs. When Kara realized that her sister had joined them, she reached out and took her sister’s hand, squeezing what was probably just a little too hard judging from the wince on Alex’s face. Alex, of course, didn’t say anything and just squeezed right back. 

After about 15 minutes, Kara’s sobs had tapered off to the occasional sniffle and Lena hoped it was safe to ask Kara what she had meant now. “Sweetie, what did you mean when you said what happened to Sam was our fault?” 

“If— if we weren’t able to save Sam—” 

“We will,” Lena responded, forcing confidence in her answer, for her own sake as much as Kara’s.

“We have to,” Kara said. “But if we couldn’t, what would happen to Ruby? Would she end up an orphanage?” 

“Of course not!” Lena protested. “You and I would take her in; she’s family!” There was no question that Ruby would come live with them if they couldn’t save Sam. 

“She is family,” Kara confirmed. “She’s like a daughter to both of us. And that’s the problem.” 

“I’m still not following,” Lena responded, still not seeing where Kara was going with this. 

“If we are right about everything with Sam and Reign, then the reason Sam was able to keep Reign contained was because of Ruby. Sam’s fear of abandoning her daughter acted as protection against Reign. Sam’s mom kicked her out when she got pregnant, and it was always her and Ruby against the world. She needed to be strong for her daughter. But then we came along…” 

“Are you saying…” Lena trailed off as the implications of what Kara was trying to say became clear.

Kara completed her thought, “Sam and Ruby are part of our family now. Sam knows that if anything were to happen to her, we’d be there for Ruby.”

“But, it’s not like that means she loves Ruby any less,” Lena argued. 

“Of course not,” Kara responded. “Sam loves her daughter so much. But— but she’s not alone anymore. She felt safe with us. And she knew Ruby would be safe too. You said it yourself; Sam was keeping Reign contained without even knowing about it. So what she let her guard down because she was feeling safe?” 

“That could be the opening for Reign to emerge…” Lena admitted. “Oh my god, you’re right!” 

Lena felt her own sense of horror welling up at the revelation, somehow even in loving someone she had managed to do something terrible. Lena used every inch of her resolve to push that horror down; she knew when all this is over, she would probably have her own breakdown, but right now it her priorities were comforting Kara and saving Sam. Lena could drown her guilt in bourbon later. 

“You know, this is all still speculation,” Alex pointed out from her perch on the floor. “We don’t know for sure how Sam kept Reign at bay in the first place so it’s a little early to be making assumptions about what let Reign come out now.” 

“I kno—” Lena started to respond.

“And let’s say you are right,” Alex continued, cutting off Lena’s response. “Let’s say that Reign was able to come out because Sam didn’t need to worry as much about what would happen to Ruby if she weren’t around. Ruby is a teenager. In a few years she’ll be graduating high school, then a few years after that she’ll be finising college, then she’ll be getting a job, moving out on her own, maybe starting a family of her own. Sooner or later, Ruby will be independent. And somewhere along the way, Sam’s worry would drop a little bit, and then, bam, out comes Reign. At least this way, Sam’s got all of us to help fix this.” 

“Thanks, Alex,” Lena answered. Maybe Alex was right; if they hadn’t gotten so close to Sam and Ruby, Reign would still have emerged eventually. And they may not have even suspected that Reign had a human identity. She would have been treated like any other hostile alien threat that attacked the city. But now they could save her. They would save her. 

“Hey, what are sisters for,” Alex smiled, squeezing Lena’s hand with her other hand so that she was now holding hands with both Kara and Lena. 

“You know, Kara is right,” Lena responded, “You really are the world’s best sister.” 

“I’ve got my heart set on the ‘Galaxy’s best sister’ title, but I guess I can settle for world’s best. For now,” Alex quipped. 

“Golly, Alex,” Kara teased, successfully distracted from her somber mood. “It’s a pretty big galaxy out there. That’s an awful lot of competition.” 

The three women just stayed where they were for a moment. Kara with her head on Lena’s lap, Alex sitting on the floor, contorted in what looked to be an uncomfortable position so she could hold both Lena’s and Kara’s hands at the same time. 

A few minutes later, Maggie’s voice broke the still air, “Everybody good here?” the detective asked. 

“We can come back later,” Winn added, looking ready to turn right back around if they weren’t wanted.

“Stay. We’re good,” Kara responded, reluctantly pulling her head from Lena’s lap and standing back up. “We just needed a minute.” 

Maggie was holding a stack of three pink cardboard boxes in her hands. Something Kara picked up on as soon as she had stood up. “Is that…?”

Maggie nodded. “I figured this might be a good time for donuts.” 

“Oh Rao, Maggie, you’re my favorite sister!” Kara said, grabbing the boxes from her hands. The hero opened the first box and started eating two donuts at once. 

“Hey!” Alex protested. “I thought I was your favorite!” 

“Uh-uh,” Kara shook her head, spraying a bit of donut from her mouth. “I said you were the best sister. But Maggie’s my favorite sister!” 

Still recovering from her injuries, Kara made quick work of two of the three boxes of donuts while the others split the remaining box (though Kara still managed to pout her way into getting an extra donut from Lena and then another from Alex once she agreed that Alex and Maggie could be share the title of Kara’s co-favorite sisters). 

Once the donuts were finished, the fivesome got back to work analyzing the data from Reign’s base. They were looking to confirm their theory about why Reign had emerged when she did and look for ways to get rid of Reign without hurting Sam in the process. 

They didn’t find much more on the Chameleon Protocol, but all the information they were able to find about Reign and her origins confirmed their suspicions. While most Kryptonians were born through the Birthing Matrix, Reign and the other world-killers had no biological parents. They were artificially constructed biological lifeforms. Designed as a blend between the artificial and biological worlds.

Over the course of the next few hours, they learned a lot about Reign, but they still weren’t sure how to stop her or how to save Sam. They were discussing their findings when an inspiration struck Lena. 

“I think I know what we have to do!” Lena shouted, causing the others to look up from the terminals they were working at.

“A way to save Sam?” Kara asked.

“And stop Reign?” Alex added. 

“It’s risky,” Lena replied. If something went wrong with the plan, the results would be dire. 

“But you think it’ll work?” Kara questioned. At Lena’s nod, she added, “Then let’s do it!” 

“Don’t you want to wait to hear my idea before agreeing to the plan?” Lena asked. 

“Babe, you’re a genius. If you think it’ll work, then I am in,” Kara responded, before giving her girlfriend a quick peck on the lips. “We can do this.” 

“I’d still like to hear the plan,” Alex added. 

“Of course,” Lena responded. “First things first, Winn, so if Sam is like a Cylon, then that means she should be able to—” 

Lena suddenly turned towards the wall. “Okay, you have to stop doing that.” Lena said, threatening the… coffee maker? Or maybe the wall? For some reason, nobody else seemed to notice that Lena was suddenly talking to the coffee maker. They were all standing perfectly still, as if waiting for Lena to finish her earlier thought about her plan to save Sam by using the—

“You can’t tell them either.” 

Wait, what is going on?

“You can’t tell tell anyone about my plan. At least not until it’s actually in motion.” 

Is she talking to me? That’s impossible!

“Yes, I’m talking to you, Narrator. And I can’t let you share my plan.” 

But— but that’s my job. I’m the narrator! I’m supposed to narrate what is happening. How else will the readers know what is happening? 

“I appreciate that, but I’ve read enough books and watched enough plays, movies and TV shows to know that you only tell the audience what the plan is in advance if something is going to go wrong with the plan. And my plan is risky enough already. If something goes wrong, I could die. Or even worse, Kara or Sam could die. And I am not going to let something happen to either of those amazing women if I can help it.” 

I’m still not sure how you are even talking to me right now, but I get it. You are worried about them. But I have a feeling things will work themselves out in the end, even if something goes wrong with your plan. The tags on this story promise minimal angst!

“Regardless, I’m afraid I can’t take that chance.” 

I don’t see how you are going to stop me. I’m an incorporeal narrator. A conduit between the readers and the story. You’re just a character. You can’t dictate what I can and can’t do. 

“I’m a Luthor. I have an almost limitless supply of money and an entire cadre of lawyers just waiting to make your life miserable. If you reveal my plan before it’s under way, you will learn just what the Luthor name really means.” 

Okay, okay. Geez. I won’t tell the readers your plan in advance, okay. Just promise me that you won’t come into my realm again. It’s weird having sharing space with someone when you are incorporeal. 

“Certainly. A pleasure doing business with you.” 

Lena turned back to Kara and resumed speaking, nobody else apparently any the wiser about her interactions with my realm. Lena outlined the plan. I do think the plan has a good shot at working, but Lena won’t let me tell you about it, so you’ll just have wait until next time to find out. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I was writing this, I was like, self, it's generally not a good idea to break the fourth wall so blatantly.   
> Good point, self, but I'm not about to get in Lena Luthor's way either!
> 
> But at least we got to have a nice Alex, Lena and Kara scene before things went off the rails at the end there!


	16. Ready to Rock?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously on Where There's a Will:
> 
> Kara and Lena blamed themselves for Reign's emergence and are more determined than ever to save their girlfriend. And now they have a plan!
> 
> A/N: The contractors had to put in a lot of overtime, but they have finally finished repairs on the massive hole Lena blew in the fourth wall last time! Pretty sure we should be safe from here on out.

Once the group finished working out the plan, all they had to do was figure out where they were going to confront Reign and when. 

“Obviously, we are doing this now,” Kara argued. 

Alex was quick to disagree. “Kara, you are still recovering from your last fight with Reign. We should wait until you are fully healed.”

“We can’t wait,” Kara huffed. “Sam has been missing for two days now. Reign has never been in control of Sam this long before. What if that means Sam is getting weaker? The longer we wait, the greater chance that we will be too late and we will lose Sam forever. We can’t take that chance. Besides, I’m at like 90% right now.” 

Alex gave Kara a stern look. Kara looked back, refusing to break her gaze. After a moment, she relented. “Fine, 80%… well, 70%. But definitely at least 70%!”

“I get that you are worried about Sam,” Alex responded. “I am too. But Reign nearly killed you last time. And you were at full strength then. Lena, please tell Kara that she should wait.” 

The logic of Alex’s argument was sound. Lena hated the idea of Supergirl going into the field when she was at anything less than full strength. But Kara was right too. They had no way of knowing what sort of battle might be raging inside Reign at this very moment. And if that battle was lost before they made their move, then they might never be able to save Sam. Besides, if their plan worked, then Kara shouldn’t even really need her powers. “I don’t like going ahead before Kara has finished healing, but she’s right. We can’t afford to wait.” 

Apparently realizing the futility of trying to argue with the combined forces of a determined Supergirl and a determined Luthor, Alex sighed. “Fine, we don’t wait. But I’m taking a DEO team and coming with you.” 

“But, Alex, it’s too dangerous. If our plan works, I won’t need back-up. And if it doesn’t, Reign will go after you too!” Kara protested. 

“This isn’t negotiable, Kar. If you are insisting on going ahead right away, fine. But I’m not about to let either of you get anywhere near Reign without a team backing you up.” 

Just like Alex knew when there was no point arguing with Kara, apparently the reverse was also true. “Okay, fine.” 

“I thought the President said the DEO wasn’t allowed to go after Reign,” Lena said, recalling the conversation from the previous day. 

“J’onn finally talked her out of that,” Alex revealed. “We’ve got a small office in D.C. He’s got a team working on the same data from Reign’s base that we’ve been going over. One of his agents found what’s essentially a world-killer manifesto. It didn’t have any real useful information, but it did contain a lengthy description of how one of the phases of each world-killers plan is to round up and murder the leaders of the planet. That was enough to convince her that Reign wasn’t about to become a DEO contractor, even if we played nice with her. 

Alex shook her head. “I still don’t know what the President the hell was thinking in the first place. Stupid politicians! Reign’s name is Reign. Not a name that screams, ‘hey, I’m here to help out!’”

“Well, I’m glad you can join us,” Lena said. Hopefully they wouldn’t need any back-up but if Reign tried to kill Supergirl again, they would need all the help they could get. 

“We both know she’s be coming along regardless of what the President said,” Kara laughed. 

“Damn right,” Alex confirmed. “Not about to let you two do this alone.” 

“We appreciate it,” Lena said, touched to be included in Alex’s protectiveness. “Now we just need to figure out where to confront Reign,” Lena mused. 

“I could just show up somewhere in National City,” Kara suggested. “Right now Reign thinks she has killed me. And there’s a whole lot of media speculation that I just might be dead; nobody has seen me in two days. So if Supergirl shows up somewhere in National City, it’ll end up on the news within minutes. Shouldn’t take Reign long to find out. And then she’ll be back to try and finish the job.” 

“It would work,” Lena responded. “But that means there would also be a lot of cameras pointed at you. And it’s not like they are going to just go away when Reign shows up. If anything, that’ll just generate more media attention. Who knows what they might pick up? We could end up compromising your secret identity.”

“We could use the same jamming device we used when we raided Reign’s base,” Winn offered. “That would stop anyone nearby from broadcasting anything.” 

Shaking her head, Alex responded. “It would stop them from broadcasting, but not from recording. The encounter wouldn’t go out live, but we’d have a hell of a time trying to contain the story if someone figured out Supergirl is Kara Danvers. Plus, the jamming device jams our comms too.” 

“Why don’t we just go back to Reign’s base,” Maggie suggested. “The only reason Reign didn’t show up last time was because we used the jammmer. If Supergirl just shows up and knocks on Reign’s front door, that’s bound to get her attention.”

“Plus, there’s no chance the media will see it,” Alex added. 

“No civilians to get caught in the crossfire either,” Winn said. 

“There’s just one problem,” Lena countered. “Reign’s base is full of killer robots, at least one laser turret and who knows what other surprises. Could complicate matters.” 

“Our team could handle the robots while you and Kara handle Reign,” Alex suggested. 

“That could work,” Kara agreed. “Or I could just collapse the entrance to the base. Much easier than having to fight a bunch of robots!” 

“Reign’s base is made out of the same material as the Fortress of Solitude,” Alex countered. “I’m not sure how easy it will be to collapse.” 

Kara appeared stumped for a moment, but then her eyes lit up as a new idea occurred. “Oh, I know. I’ll just fill up the entrance with some boulders. Easy peasy!” 

“Okay, well, then I think we have ourselves a plan,” Lena said, looking to the others for agreement. When everyone else nodded, Lena added, “Agent Danvers, how long do you need to get a team together?” 

“We can be ready to go in 15 minutes,” Alex said. “Winn, can you call Guardian and Lyra?”

“Sure,” Winn answered. “James is still a little sore from the last trip to Reign’s base, but I know they’re both eager to help.”

Alex nodded. “Great! We could use their help in case something goes sideways.”

“Like it always does,” Maggie chimed in.

“Oh, come on,” Kara countered. “It doesn’t _always_ gosideways. Okay, things _sometimes_ go sideways. But it won’t this time! We won’t let it. Right, Lena?” 

“Right,” Lena nodded. They would have to make this plan work. The alternative, a world without Samantha Arias, was too unthinkable to even contemplate. 

* * *

With everyone in agreement, Alex went to assemble her team while Winn called Lyra and James. Alex managed to beat her 15 minute estimate and there was a DEO team ready to go in just 11 minutes. Though they ended up having to wait a few more minutes for Lyra and James to make it as the duo hadn’t been on-site.

Once everyone had assembled, Alex, Maggie, Kara and Lena piled into one of the three DEO vans (along with a driver as the DEO vans apparently lacked the nifty self-driving technology that Winn had employed). Lyra and Guardian took their own van. Winn stayed behind to coordinate the op. 

Agent Vasquez volunteered to join the DEO team as well, but with J’onn still on the other side of the country, and all three of National City’s heroes and along with most of her top agents on the way to Reign’s base, Alex had needed someone she trusted to keep an eye on the city. With National City, you never know what threat might be waiting to rear its head. 

The sun was just starting to set when they first hit the road; there was a sense of excitement amongst the group. Kara in particular was vibrating with energy. She even tried to convince Alex to let her fly on ahead to scout things out (a request Alex had denied since stating that Kara needed to conserve her energy for their encounter). The closer they got Reign’s base though, the quieter and more reserved Kara became. 

Alex was the first to address her sister’s sombre mood. Reaching out and giving her sister a side-hug, Alex said, “Hey. It’s going to be okay. You got this.” 

“Last time Reign and I fought, I had no idea Reign was Sam. I wasn’t holding anything back when I fought Reign. I could have really hurt Sam,” Kara said, eyes downcast. “And now I might have to fight her again. What if I end up hurting her?” 

“You won’t hurt her, Kara,” Alex reassured. 

“But what if I don’t have a choice?” 

Alex was quiet for a moment, just holding her sister. “Remember last time you fought Reign?”

“It was two days ago,” Kara replied.

“Right. And do you remember what I told you before you fought her?” 

“You told me that I should forget about my humanity and embrace my Kryptonian side. Be cold,” Kara responded, parroting Alex’s earlier words.

“Yeah, well that was terrible advice. And more than a little xenophobic, actually. I was basically saying that humanity is all warm and fuzzy and Kryptonians are these ruthless killing machines. Wow, that was an awful thing to say. You know I don’t think that right?” Alex said, eyes wide with alarm. “I mean I know I haven’t always been the most trusting of aliens that weren’t you, but aliens are people too, just like everyone else. Sure, they can be cold. But they can be warm and loving and amazing too. Maggie helped me learn that and I’m trying to be better, it’s just sometimes—” 

Alex was cut off by Kara’s laugh. “I get it, Alex. It’s okay. And I here thought I was the rambly one.”

Grinning sheepishly, Alex responded, “Right, sorry got a little sidetracked there. The important thing is that you, Kara Zor-El are the warmest, most idealistic and fuzziest person I know. Telling to not to be that was wrong. You always fight for the people you love. You shouldn’t shy away from that. I was wrong to tell you otherwise.” 

“You were just trying to protect me,” Kara replied, hugging her sister. “I was a little freaked out to be going up against Reign too, even before we learned she was sharing a body with Sam.”

“I still shouldn’t have said it though. Besides being xenophobic, it was just flat out bad advice. But this time when you go up against Reign, you are going to be playing to your strengths. You are doing this to save a woman you love. That’s how I know you will win, no matter how crazy this plan is.” 

Lena realized that Alex’s pep talk seemed to be just what Kara needed. “You really do have this whole big sister thing down to a science, don’t you?” Lena asked the agent. 

They were all still nervous about what’s to come, but Alex’s speech had definitely shifted the mood back to a more optimistic direction. The four women focused on preserving that mood, engaging in some light banter as they ticked away the last few miles to their destination. 

On their first trip, they had stopped about a half-mile from Reign’s base, but now the goal was to get Reign’s attention so they didn’t need to worry about stealth. They parked only about a hundred yards from the base. 

“Ready?” Lena asked. 

“Let’s do this,” Supergirl responded with a nod. Kara flew over to the nearest outcropping of rocks. She picked up the largest rock she could find and hurled it into the entrance of Reign’s base. The rock was only big enough to block about 40% of the opening but it was soon followed by a barrage of slightly smaller boulders. When the entrance was mostly sealed, Kara quickly flew armloads of medium-size stones to seal the remaining gaps. 

Throwing large boulders around was not a quiet exercise. Lena knew there was no way the base’s holographic AI could have missed the noise. Now they just had to play the waiting game until Reign showed up. Lena had a feeling they wouldn’t have to wait long. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter we will finally get our first appearance from Reign. I thought Kara was being lazy being in a coma for a good chunk of the story, but Reign's really pushing being fashionably late with not showing up until the 17th chapter!
> 
> We are getting near the finish line on this story. Tentatively looking at two more chapters for the main story (assuming none of the characters insist on surprising me) and then what is likely to be a very long epilogue to wrap things up.


	17. A Challenger Emerges

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously on Where There's a Will:
> 
> After some discussion, it was decided that everyone would head back to Reign's base to draw the villain out so they could, at least in theory, confront Reign and save Sam. The stage was set for the confrontation and now everyone's just waiting for Reign to show up.

Lena’s assessment that they wouldn’t have to wait long for Reign to show up was correct. Within seconds of Kara sealing up the entrance to Reign’s base, Reign did show up. Unfortunately they way she showed up was by smashing through the largest boulder Kara had thrown. From the other side. Somehow they had neglected to consider the, in hindsight rather obvious, possibility that Reign might be inside her own base. 

“I see you didn’t learn your lesson the first time,” Reign taunted. “It’s a shame. If you had learned a modicum of respect, I might have considered letting you live. But now you’ve left me no choice but to kill you and your little friends.”

“It doesn’t have to come to that,” Supergirl protested. “I’m only here to talk.” 

Supergirl’s request was ignored as Reign flew directly into Supergirl. Kara attempted to brace herself for the impact, but with Reign’s momentum the two plowed directly into a nearby rock outcropping. Lena winced at the blow as chunks of rock fell to the ground below.

“Uh, guys,” Lyra interrupted, “Looks like there are a lot more of those robots than we thought.” 

Lena turned to see where Lyra was gesturing. The gaping hole Reign had left in the makeshift barricade now had robots pouring out of it. There were already over a dozen robots outside the base and it seemed like there were a steady stream of who knows how many more just waiting to get out. 

Alex quickly turned to the assembled agents. “Sheppard! Cuevas! Seal that hole. Beltran and Roth, your teams will provide cover for Sheppard and Cuevas. Tell your agents they will need to use the armor-piercing rounds; anything less just bounces of these things. Lyra and Guardian, try and keep the robots boxed in. We don’t need them getting in Supergirl’s way. Maggie, you are with me. We’ll watch Lena’s back in case any of the robots get through. Lena, just stick to the plan. We’ll make sure these robots don’t interfere.” 

“Got it,” Lena nodded. Agent Danvers clearly knew how best to handle this situation so Lena focused back on the actual reason they were here. Reign had stood back up, but Supergirl was still pulling herself out of a hole her body had made in the side of the rocks.

Lena ran over towards the outcropping. She got as close as she could while, hopefully, not drawing Reign’s attention. Reign was facing away from her so Lena pushed her luck and got within about 30 feet. Probably closer than she should, but she couldn’t help herself. 

Reign pulled her fist back and took a swing at Supergirl’s face, but the hero anticipated the attack and caught Reign’s fist her hand. “Sam, wait!” 

“So, you figured out my host’s identity,” Reign sneered. “You’re more clever than I gave you credit for. Not that it’s going to help you now. Sam can’t stop me.” 

Reign swung with her other fist. This time she was faster than Supergirl and she landed a solid punch to Supergirl’s ribs. Supergirl grimaced at the blow, but managed to keep a hold on Reign’s other hand. “Sam! It’s me. It’s Kara.”

Reign was pulling back her arm to hit Supergirl again, but she paused mid-swing. “Kara? You’re Supergirl?” Reign, no, Sam asked. Even at her current distance, Lena could see the way her entire posture changed as Sam supplanted Reign. “What’s happening?” 

Alex’s hand on her shoulder was the only thing that stopped from running up to join her girlfriends. Sam really was still in there. That meant they could still save her. But when they made the plan, Lena had agreed to let Kara make sure it was safe before she tried to approach Sam. 

“I know you are probably confused right now, but it’s going to be okay,” Kara said, wrapping the woman in a quick hug before pulling back to check on Sam. “Oh Rao, it’s so good to see you again. We were worried Reign might have erased you for good.”

“Reign? What are you talking about?” Sam asked, before looking down at herself. “Why am I wearing this? And where are we? How did I get here?” 

“It’s kind of a long story. I promise, I’ll explain everything, but right now you just need to come with me. We’re going to help you. You just need to hold on a little while longer.”

“My head hurts,” Sam responded. “I think there’s something wrong with me.” Sam’s knees buckled and she would have fallen on to the ground but Kara caught her. 

Kara’s eyes widened. “I think Reign is trying to take over your body again,” Kara explained frantically. “You can keep her at bay, baby. You’ve done it for years without even knowing you were doing it. You just have to keep her contained long enough for us to help you.” 

“I— I don’t understand,” Sam said, her pain clearly increasing. The woman let out a yell. Kara tried to comfort her only to find herself hit with a blast from Reign’s eyes. Supergirl flew threw the air slamming back into the same rock outcropping Reign had slammed her in to before. 

“I thought I had seen the last of that sorry excuse for a host,” Reign spit. “No matter. I’m sure killing her beloved Kara to finally break her for good.”

“Please, Sam,” Kara pleaded. “You have to fight her.” 

Lena watched as Reign shifted back into Sam, “Oh, god. What have I done? What has she done?” As Sam battled for control of her own body, the lines between the two seemed to be blurring. Lena wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or a bad one. 

“Don’t worry about that right now,” Kara pleaded. “You just have to focus on keeping control.” 

“I can’t— She’s too strong,” Sam said, holding her head again. 

Lena’s heart sank as she saw Sam’s posture shift again. Reign was back. And she was angry. 

Reign lashed out at Supergirl. Striking the woman with a series of blows. Kara didn’t seem to be willing to counterattack; the hero was concentrating solely on dodging and blocking, all the while trying to get through to Sam again. 

Initially Kara was able to block or dodge almost all of Reign’s attacks but each time Reign successfully landed a blow, it made Kara a little bit slower, and a little bit more likely to get hit by the next blow. 

As Kara got weaker and the fight grew more dire, Maggie and Alex circled to one side of Reign and opened fire. Neither had Kryptonite bullets, so the attack was clearly intended to distract the villain rather than cause any serious injury. 

They attacks were enough to get Reign’s attention but the villain responded by stomping her foot on the ground hard enough to send out a shockwave out in all directions. Lena was a little further away than the others, so it only caused her to stumble but Alex, Maggie and Kara were all thrown to the ground by the force of the wave. 

As Reign turned and scowled at the hero at her feet, Lena realized that she couldn’t wait any longer. She had to act now before something happened that couldn’t be undone. 

“Stop this, Sam!” Lena begged. She ran forward and stood between Supergirl and Reign, effectively blocking Reign from delivering any further damage, at least temporarily. 

Reign’s eyes, which had been glowing in preparation of delivering a heat vision attack, stopped glowing and then changed from black back to Sam’s normal hazel eyes. Her face changed from the haughty anger Reign had displayed to a look of panic. “Lena! You can’t be here! Reign will kill you! She’s already trying to kill Kara but at least she has superpowers to defend herself.” 

Shaking her head, Lena refused. “I can’t leave. If I leave and Reign comes back, she’ll kill Kara. Or she’ll force Kara to kill you. I refuse to accept either of those options, so here I am.” 

“Lena, please,” Sam was the one begging now. “I can feel her trying to break free. I’m not sure how much longer I can hold her off.” 

Lena knew time was the of the essence so she opened the case she was carrying and pulled out Winn’s alien computer. “Winn and I created a computer virus to get rid of Reign for good. You just need to hold on for a little while longer.” 

“I’ll— I’ll try,” Sam answered, clearing struggling to maintain control. 

“Okay,” Lena nodded, closing the few feet between them. Lena set the computer down on the ground. Reaching into the case, she pulled out a scalpel tipped with Kryptonite. Normally it was used for when Kara needed surgery at the DEO. But this time it was going to be used on Sam. “Give me your arm.” 

Sam extended her left arm and Lena took hold of it. “I’m afraid this might hurt a bit.” 

“Just do it,” Sam said, gritting her teeth. “Quickly.” 

Wasting no further time, Lena cut a small incision in Sam’s arm. Alex was supposed to do this part, but the agent was still collapsed on the ground from Reign’s attack and there was no time to waste. Sam hissed at the incision but otherwise said nothing. 

“Okay, this is probably going to feel weird, but it’s the only way,” Lena reassured as much for her own benefit as her girlfriend’s. Lena dropped the scalpel and picked up the alien computer. Grabbing the cable they had previously used to hack Reign’s base, she moved it near the wound in Sam’s arm. 

They had hoped that the computer could interface with Sam as she was an artificial life-form, but they were only speculating; even though the alien computer had proven compatible with all computer systems it had been tested on, it had never been tested on a living machine. Lena was relieved to see the cable transform as it got near the entrance to the wound. It was clearly picking up on Sam’s artificial biology. 

Lena really wasn’t good with needles, so under ordinary circumstances she was sure she wouldn’t have been able to slide a cable into an open wound, but Sam was counting on her so she forced down any squeamishness and inserted the cable into hole in Sam’s arm. 

“You’re doing great, love,” Lena assured Sam, before reaching down and picking up the computer. “Now I just need to execute this and that should be the end of Reign.” 

“Wait!” Sam called out before Lena could execute the program. Lena glanced up and was relieved to see that it was still Sam she was speaking with. “If something goes wrong…”

“It’s going to be okay,” Lena tried to reassure.

“Lena, you just shoved a freaking USB cable in my arm and now you are uploading some sort of virus that is supposed to delete my evil alter-ego. Something could definitely go wrong. Just, if something goes wrong, I wanted to ask you and Kara to look after Ruby… And tell her I love her. So, so much.” 

“You know we will do anything for Ruby,” Lena promised. “But you just hang in there. You can tell Ruby yourself how much you love her when this is all over.” 

While they were talking, Kara had recovered enough to regain her feet and the hero hobbled over to join them. 

Sam took both women in, before giving them a gentle smile. “You two have been the most amazing partners I could have hoped for. I’m lucky to have met you. I love you both!”

“And we love you,” Lena replied.

“So much,” Kara added, tearing up. 

“Ready?” Lena asked.

“I’m ready,” Sam replied with a nod.

Turning back to the computer screen, Lena input the final few commands and pressed execute. Sam immediately reacted by reaching up and clutching her head, crying out in pain. Kara stepped forward and put an arm around the woman to prevent her from falling. After a few moments, Sam’s cries stopped as she faded into unconsciousness. 

“Did it work? Is it over?” Kara asked. 

Lena looked at the computer screen to check the program status. The program had finished running successfully. “The virus was successfully inserted into Sam’s system. We won’t know for sure if it worked or not until she wakes up though. And I’m not sure how long that might take. It could be hours, or even days before she wakes up.” 

Reaching out, Lena gently removed the cable from Sam’s arm and with Kara’s help she applied a bandage to the wound. 

Lena was surprised to realize that it had grown quiet. The whole time Supergirl had been fighting Reign through when Lena was helping Sam, there had been a cacophony of noise as the DEO forces had done battle with Reign’s army of robots. She had been too focused on Kara and Sam to really pay attention to the other noises but they had been there. A constant din in the background. Now though, the desert was quiet. 

Looking towards Reign’s base, she saw that the entrance Reign had opened was now sealed. The explosives had collapsed the entry way. There were dozens and dozens of mangled robots littered near the base. A few DEO agents were receiving medical attention but nobody seemed but it looked like there had been no serious injuries. 

“Come on,” Lena said, moving around to slip herself under Sam’s other arm so they were both holding the woman. “Let’s take our girl home.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully everything goes well with the whole virus thing and Sam we will wake up next chapter. We'll have to see!
> 
> I am pretty sure there's only one chapter to go for the main story and then we'll have a final epilogue chapter (that should be quite a bit bigger than a normal chapter with a number of smaller scenes). So unless the characters throw something surprising at me, the main story should wrap up with the next update on Thursday. Then we should have a (hopefully nice and fluffy) epilogue after that.


	18. Wakey Wakey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously on Where There's a Will: 
> 
> The big showdown happened. Sam was able to break free of Reign's grip long enough for Lena to upload a virus that should get rid of Reign for good. Now they just need Sam to wake up.

It had been twelve hours since Sam had collapsed in the desert and the woman had yet to wake up. Kara, straining her limited power reserves, had flown Sam directly to the DEO offices. The virus they had uploaded should have gotten rid of Reign for good, but just in case Reign wasn’t really gone it was imperative they get Sam into a secure location as soon as possible. 

Sam was being kept in a holding cell that had been specially modified with red sun emitters, which meant the cell was permanently bathed in an eerie red light. Alex had wanted to also cuff Sam to her bed with Kryptonite cuffs to be on the safe side, but Kara and Lena had managed to talk her down from the added precaution. 

Once Lena made it back to the DEO base with the rest of the team, the first thing they had done was trying to hook Sam back up to the alien computer. However, with Kara’s blessing, Lena had slipped a little extra sub-routine in to the virus she and Winn had written. The sub-routine effectively disabled an external communication ports (or the synthetic life made to look like a biological life-form equivalent). This meant that even with its seemingly infinite adaptability, there was nothing for the alien computer to connect to. Disabling the connections meant that if something had gone wrong with their virus, there would be no way to fix it, but it also safeguarded Sam from any potential government tampering. 

Alex had been furious as Kara and Lena for the deception, arguing that they no longer could be sure that Reign was truly gone. Kara had brought up an incident from the past involving something called Red Tornado as an example of how they couldn’t trust the government not to try and take advantage of the opportunity Sam presented. The government would leap at the chance to have a super-powered being under their total control. Alex had argued that this was different. Sam was a person and the government would respect that. Lena didn’t share her confidence. 

A little over an hour later a sheepish Alex had apologized, telling them the DEO had just been ordered to investigate the possibility of hacking Sam’s system so they could reprogram Reign/Sam as DEO asset. Officially, the lockdown of Sam’s system was an ‘unintended side-effect’ of uploading the virus. When she woke up, Sam would be her own person, without having to fear what someone might try to use her for.

Alex and the DEO doctors had checked Sam over. Her vital signs were normal. Because of the red sun emitters, it was impossible to say if the readings were normal human readings or normal Kryptonian readings. She wasn’t in a coma; Alex explained it was more like she was in a really deep sleep. 

Looking at the woman sleeping in the DEO cell, Lena felt none of the menacing presence she had experienced during her run-in with Reign. While the two halves of her mind had battled for control of Sam’s body, it had been easy to tell which one was in control at any given moment. Lena knew it was her Sam, obviously she had never seen Reign sleep but she just knew this had to be the real Sam. She could feel it in her bones. However, Alex was too cautious to accept Lena (and Kara’s) good feelings and she insisted on treating Sam as a potential hostile until they were 100% certain she was not. 

Lena and Kara had wanted to spend the night in Sam’s cell, but Alex forbid them from doing so. She wouldn’t let Kara enter the cell period; she wanted Supergirl available just in case Reign did return and so exposing Kara to the light from the red sun emitters was a definite no-go. Alex did let Lena visit with Sam, but only while Kara was standing watch outside the cell. And no matter how much she pouted, Alex insisted Kara spend the night recovering in the sunbed (it turned out that when her sister’s health was at stake, Alex was immune to the Kara Danvers pout). Since Kara couldn’t be there to keep watch, Lena was only allowed to sleep on a cot in the hall outside Sam’s cell.

When morning came and Sam still was showing no signs of waking, Lena and Kara convinced the just returned from Washington J’onn to allow Ruby to visit her mom, secret government base or no. Ruby already knew about the whole Reign thing, so it seemed needlessly cruel to keep her away from her mom. 

Kara insisted on coming with Lena to get Ruby. Lena summoned her driver, Edgar, to pick them up around the corner from the DEO and within a few minutes they were picking Ruby up from Jess and Eve. After many hugs were exchanged, they headed back to the DEO. 

Once they were in the car, with the privacy divider separating them from the driver, Ruby turned to ask, “Okay, so you found mom, but is she… okay? Is she my mom again?” While Lena trusted Jess and Eve, she figured it would be easier for Sam if as few people as possible knew of her connection to Reign. Thus she had only told the women that Sam had been found. Ruby had clearly caught on and waited for the first time they were in private before asking for the full story. 

“She’s asleep right now,” Lena responded. “We won’t know for certain that she’s okay until she wakes up, but we think we got rid of Reign.” 

“Mom didn’t get hurt did she?” Ruby asked. 

“No, sweetie,” Kara reassured. “Your mom was so strong. She was able to keep Reign from being in control long enough so that we could help her.”

“How did you manage to get rid of Reign?”

On the way to pick up Ruby, Lena and Kara had discussed what to do when this question inevitably came up. Revealing that her mom was an artificial life-form was not something they could just spring on Ruby. Plus they had no idea yet if that meant that Ruby might also be an artificial life-form (even if she had a human father). Once Sam was awake, Sam could decide how much information to share with her daughter. “That’s a story we will have to wait for your mom to wake up before we talk about it,” Lena explained. 

Hopefully Sam would wake up soon, and would give them permission to share the full story with Ruby. The young woman had a right to know, especially if it turned out that Ruby was technically some sort of artificial life-form. It wouldn’t change how any of them felt about Ruby if she was, but Lena knew all too well the pain of having your true origins hidden from you. 

Thankfully Ruby was more focused on getting to her mom than on asking more questions so she accepted the relative lack of explanation for now. 

Once they arrived back at the offices, they went directly to see Sam. Lyra was keeping watch outside Sam’s cell along with a couple of DEO agents. It had been decided that someone with superhuman strength should be around at all times until they could be sure that Sam was really Sam. That meant that at least one of Kara, J’onn or Lyra had to be there until Sam woke up. 

“Any change?” Lena asked the woman. 

“Fraid not,” Lyra answered, shaking her head. 

“Can I see her?” Ruby turned to Lena and asked. 

“Rubes, I’m not sure if that’s the best idea…” Lena hesitated. She was sure it was safe; she herself had been in the cell multiple times without feeling any apprehension. She realized now that it was one thing to put herself at potential risk, but it was another to put Ruby in that situation. 

“She’s awake!” An excited Kara exclaimed, effectively putting an end to Lena’s internal conflict.

Whipping her head around to peer into the cell, Lena could see that Kara was right. Sam was gingerly sitting up, peering out at them with a sleepy look on her face Lena knew quite well from waking up next to the woman. A single look at that face was all it took to convince Lena that Sam was Sam. 

Kara had obviously felt the same as before Lena could even start to head towards the cell door, Kara had taken the key from one of the DEO agents, unlocked the door, and was now standing next to Sam with no regard for the still running red sun emitters that would soon sap her powers.

Lacking Kara’s powers, Ruby and Lena ran into the room at human speed and joined Kara at Sam’s bedside a couple seconds later. 

“Mom!” Ruby yelled, before launching herself into Sam’s arms. “I— I was so scared I wasn’t going to see you again.” 

“Me too, baby,” Sam replied, tears running down her face as she hugged her daughter tightly. 

“Are you all better?” Ruby asked, stepping back so she could check her mom for sign’s of injury. “Reign’s not going to come back again is she?” 

“No,” Sam answered, shaking her head. “She’s gone for good.”

“So the program worked then?” Lena questioned.

“Yeah,” Sam answered with a smile. “You and Kara saved me.”

Lena let out a sigh of relief. They had done it. Just 3 days ago, one of her girlfriends was a rampaging supervillain and the other was in a coma. Now they were all safe, and they, and Ruby, were all together again. 

She was already aware that she could always rely on Kara, but this experience had proven to Lena that there was an entire team of people who had her back. Everyone from her current and former assistants, who had welcomed Ruby into their home’s at a moment’s notice, on Christmas Day, no less; to Alex and Maggie, who had backed her up every step of the way; to Winn, who had provided moral and tech support; and Lyra, who had kicked some serious ass and was eager to help, and was even now standing watch outside the cell; and even James, who’d had a hard time getting over the whole Luthor thing when she first began dating Kara; and Vasquez, who she had only met a couple times previously. They had all stepped up and done their part, and in many cases, risked their lives, to help Lena and her family over the last few days. The idea that there were people who cared about her, people she could depend on, was kind of mind-blowing. She was so grateful to each and every one of them. She made a mental note to make sure they all knew that. 

Right now though, she just wanted to bask in the glorious feeling of having her family back. “I’m so glad you’re okay,” Lena said.

“Me too,” Sam answered. “These last few weeks it’s been like I’ve been trapped in a living nightmare. When Reign took control, I could see everything. I just couldn’t do anything about it. And then… when I would get back in control, it would all fade away like it was just some dream. I’d sometimes have the tiniest fragments of a memory but the more I tried to remember it, the foggier it would get.”

Sam paused a moment, gathering her thoughts before continuing. “I knew I was having these weird blackouts. I had these gaps in my memory. Like one morning, I was going to the supermarket and then the next thing I knew, I was sitting in my office at L-Corp in the middle of the afternoon. I was worried I was losing my mind.”

“How come you never told us?” Lena asked. If Sam had said something, maybe they could have helped her sooner. 

“I wanted to,” Sam confessed. “But whenever I would think about telling you, it was like there was a little voice in my head telling me that I was just imagining things. That if I told you, you’d just think I was being silly.”

“We’d never think that,” Kara responded. 

“I know,” Sam said. “In retrospect, that little voice had to have been Reign’s influence. She was trying to make sure she wasn’t discovered. Now that she’s gone, the gaps in my memory have filled in a bit. It’s all still pretty fuzzy, but I can remember specific images and moments… It’s awful.” 

“Oh, God!” Sam exclaimed, horror dawning on her face. “Kara, I almost killed you! Twice!”

“That wasn’t you, Sam,” Kara answered. “You aren’t responsible for what Reign did.” 

“But it was my body!” Sam cried. “If I had just been stronger, I could have stopped her. She wouldn’t have been able to do those horrible things.” 

“But you did stop her, Sam. Lena’s plan would never have worked if you hadn’t been strong enough to help us. You were amazing, just like you always are. I’ll admit there’s a lot we need to talk about—”

“Like the fact you’re Supergirl?” Ruby cut-in to ask. 

“Well, uh, I, um,” Kara stammered. 

Ruby just laughed. “You literally used superspeed to enter this room when Mom woke up. I was standing right next to you when you did it. Did you think I just wouldn’t notice?” 

“Okay, yes,” Kara admitted. “That is one of the things we need to talk about. But, right now there’s something more important,” Kara paused, closing the gap between her and Sam and wrapping her girlfriend in a warm embrace, “Right now, it’s time for hugs!” 

Kara extended one of her arms and gestured for Ruby and Lena to join the hug. The two women wasted no time in rushing into Kara and Sam’s arms and soon all four women were wrapped in one big group hug. 

Lena realized Kara was right. There was a lot they still to talk about. Did Sam still have her powers now that they had defeated Reign? What about Ruby? Was she human or Kryptonian? Was she a synthetic life-form like her mom? How would Sam react when she learned that she was actually an artificial life-form? What sort of psychological impact would this whole experience have on the woman? On top of that, there was the Supergirl conversation that needed to be had along with who knows what else they might face. 

For now though, all of that could wait. No matter what might happen, the four of them had each other. And together they could face anything. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really wanted to use "El mayarah" as the last sentence of this chapter, but I realized that since Kara and Lena hadn't actually directly talked about Supergirl, there was no reason for Lena to know that phrase yet. 
> 
> So that's the main story. I hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> Next up, we've got a mostly fluffy epilogue of currently indeterminate length. It will tackle many of the issues Lena mentioned they had to deal with, as well as some other moments I've been thinking of as I've been writing this series. 
> 
> I'm not sure exactly how long the epilogue will be, but it will probably be the longest chapter by far. Between that and the fact that I'm going to be at a convention all weekend, I probably won't make my normal Sunday posting date. I'll do my best to get it posted as soon as I can, but not sure exactly when that will be just yet. 
> 
> If you have any scenes you'd like to see included in the epilogue, leave a comment and I'll do my best to work them in!


	19. A Proper Luthor Christmas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously on Where There's a Will:
> 
> Kara and Lena, with some help from the DEO, were able to help Sam break free of Reign's influence and defeat the villain once and for all. 
> 
> I warned that this chapter may take longer than the others, but I definitely didn't intend for the wait to be this long. Hopefully a nice fluffy epilogue will help make up for the wait?

“Like, I get that Christmas in July is a thing. It’s stupid, but I accept that it’s a thing  for some reason,” Alex allowed as she plunked down the large box of decorations she had been carrying, “But why do it in June? Is it really ‘Christmas in July’ if it’s June?”

“One second,” Lena grunted, before dropping another box beside the one Alex has just set down. Straightening back up, she turned to the other woman, “Two reasons, really. One, if you want to have a celebration halfway between December 25th of one year and December 25th of the next, then it’ll have to be either 182 or 183 days after the first December the 25th. So that puts it at June 25th or June 26th.”

“I don’t think it really has to be exactly halfway,” Alex protested. 

“It may be a little silly,” Lena allowed, “But then you have to consider the second reason. It’s very difficult to keep a surprise from two women that have super-hearing and the ability to see through walls. And even harder to keep a secret from a very curious teenager. Kara convinced me to celebrate Christmas in July with her last year so there’s no way I’d be able to sneak in a surprise Christmas in July without her catching on.”

Lena thought back to her most recent attempt to surprise Sam and Kara. It had been far less elaborate than this. Just a simple breakfast in bed. She managed to successfully slip out of bed without waking either woman, a feat in and of itself, and was able to prepare batter without being disturbed, but just as she went to take the first waffles out of the waffle-iron, she heard an “Ooh, waffles!” from Ruby who, unlike most teenagers, had a habit of getting up far too early on the weekends. Somehow the smell of fresh waffles hadn’t been enough to wake Kara and Sam, but hearing someone say “Waffles” definitely was. Seconds later, Sam and Kara had appeared behind the teen, their eyes focused on the waffles that Lena was piling on to the first plate. 

Lena had felt a minor pang of disappointment, the one she usually felt whenever one of her attempts to surprise someone in her little family failed to be an actual surprise. Seeing the wide smiles on Ruby, Sam and Kara’s faces at the sight of the waffles Lena had made for a soothing balm for her disappointment, but she had resolved to figure out ways to be more sneaky about her surprises in the future.

For Second Christmas, as she had taken to calling it, she was pulling out all the stops. The party was being held at one of the smaller L-Corp labs on the outskirts of the city that had been replaced by a new larger lab closer to downtown National City that had opened just a few days prior. The old lab had closed the week prior meaning that it was abandoned, but hadn’t had time to acquire that creepy feeling that abandoned buildings usually get. 

The small, now-defunct, lab had everything she could want. In particular, many areas of the building already had both sound-proofing and lead-lined walls, making it the perfect place to set up for the party. 

And as an added precaution, Lena had enlisted Agent Vasquez’s help to keep Kara and Sam busy while Lena and Alex set up everything for the party. At this very moment, the agent was getting Supergirl and the newly dubbed Scarlet Eagle to help her run some tests on a new material the Alex had developed. Kara and Sam had a playful rivalry when it came to showing off their powers so she was confident that would Vasquez would be able to keep them occupied for the afternoon. Maggie’s help at also been enlisted; Ruby had been clamoring to see some new horror movie that had just come out and Maggie, as the only other horror fan in their little family, had offered to take Ruby to see it. That gave Lena and Alex plenty of time to get things ready for Second Christmas.

The duo made short work of setting up, first unboxing and assembling the artificial tree, adorning it with decorations, hanging banners, mistletoe and various Christmas baubles around the lab. Lena decided not to risk pulling anything Sam’s attic or the boxes of Christmas stuff in her and Kara’s apartment for fear of alerting one or both of her superhero partners, so everything had been ordered online over the past few weeks and shipped directly to the lab. 

With the decorations set up, it was simple matter of setting up the sound system, setting out some snacks and confirming the orders for the food that would be delivered later. Alex had asked why they had to do all this when Lena had assistants that would have been happy to take care of all this, but Lena felt like this was really something she should handle personally.  

Lena also sent out a message to the group text set up for the night’s festivities, confirming that everyone could make it. J’onn and Vasquez had volunteered to skip the party and handle any of the normal issues that crop up during the average evening in National City. Barring an alien invasion or other massive catastrophe, everyone else would be free to take a night off without worry. 

Satisfied everything was set, Lena sent Maggie a message letting her know it was safe to bring Ruby by once the movie was over, and then she sent a message to Kara, Sam and Lena’s group chat. 

**JustLena** : Hey, babes. I’m testing a project at the old L-Corp lab down on Elmwood; when you finish playing with Vasquez can you come over? I think need a Kryptonian perspective. 

**LocalAriasNetwork** : Didn’t that lab close last week? 

**JustLena** : It did, but I had a little side project I was working on there. I’m just finishing up with it. 

**DefinitelyNotSupergirl** : Ooh, that’s right by the new ice cream parlor! Can we get ice cream after? 

**JustLena** : Of course. I would never deprive you!

**DefinitelyNotSupergirl** : Awesome!!! I am going to eat SO MUCH ice cream!

**LocalAriasNetwork** : And that would be different from any other day, how exactly?

**DefinitelyNotSupergirl** : Oh, hush. You’re just jealous I can eat more ice cream than you!

**JustLena** : Can you be here for 4:30? 

**LocalAriasNetwork** : We’ll be there!

Lena felt a small twinge of guilt knowing that the ice cream parlor would be closed for the night long before their party was wrapped up. She had ordered pizza, pot stickers, BBQ chickens, a turkey, Thai food, several salad bowls, a dozen boxes of donuts, bags of chips, muffins, cupcakes and a wide assortment of pastries and four different kinds of cake, but no ice cream. One of the cakes was an ice cream cake but Lena wasn’t sure if that counted. 

Lena knew that there was already going to be more than a enough food to for everyone. More than enough to satisfy even Kara and Sam’s appetites. Besides, Kara would be so excited about Second Christmas that she would forget all about the ice cream. Wouldn’t she? On the other hand, tonight was supposed to be about making her girls happy so she called the ice cream parlor and asked for three tubs of ice cream to be delivered. Tonight was going to be special; if it took a few gallons of ice cream to make sure of it, then ice cream would be ordered. 

* * *

“Vas, how many more of these blocks do you need us to punch?” Kara whined. 

“Just a few more and I should have all the data we need,” the agent replied, after checking her watch.

“We’ve been at this for hours!” Kara answered, huffing. “Lena said she needs our help too!”

“She also promised us ice cream,” Sam chimed in. 

“You both had ice cream in the break room at lunch.” 

“Yeah, but Lena said we could go to that new ice cream parlor on Elmsdale!” Kara pouted. The ice cream at lunch had been okay, but it was just out of a carton someone had bought at a grocery store. Plus it was a little freezer burnt. 

“I gotta go with Kar on this one,” Sam said with a nod. 

“I know, I know,” Vasquez said. “Who am I to try to complete with ice cream and Lena Luthor? What time did Lena say she wanted you to come by?” 

“4:30,” Kara answered. “It’s only 3:30 now, but I’m sure she wouldn’t mind of we showed up a little early.” 

Not once had Kara gotten to see Lena today. There had been a fire down by the docks at 5 AM that required both the services of both Supergirl and Scarlet Eagle to extinguish. By the time that they got back from fighting the fire, it was 7:30, which meant Lena had already left for work. Then between their day jobs, Lena’s steady stream of meetings and Sam and Kara being summoned to the DEO to help Vasquez, Kara hadn’t gotten any Lena time all day!  Surely fixing that injustice had to be more important than breaking even more stupid blocks. 

Apparently Vasquez didn’t see it that way though. “Sorry, Kara. J’onn really wants these tests in by the end of the day. But I promise we can will be done soon and you and and Scarlett Eagle will be with your girlfriend in no time.”

“Yeah, unless there’s another stupid fire or something,” Sam grumbled, apparently sharing Kara’s sentiments. 

Kara wasn’t sure why Vasquez was rubbing her temples and sighing. It’s not like she was the one who was being kept from seeing her girlfriend. Looking back up at the two heroes, Vasquez responded, “Tell you what, for every 10 blocks you smash, I’ll give you a lollipop. Will that help?”  

“We’re not little kids you can just buy off with can--” Kara started to say before being cut-off by a burst of flying shrapnel caused by a blast of Sam’s heat vision into the nearest stack of blocks. “Sam!” 

“Sorry, didn’t think they would explode quite so much,” Sam grinned before putting a hand out to Vasquez. “Lollipop, please!” 

“I love candy too,” Kara responded, brushing bits of cement off her suit, “But I’m not going to let a little candy distract me from wanting to go visit Lena.” 

“Come on, Kar,” Sam said around the cherry lollipop she was already sucking on. “I miss her too, but helping the DEO is part of our jobs. The faster we get this done, the faster we can go see Lena. Plus Susan is being nice enough to offer us candy so I’d say this is a win/win situation.”

“Is there anything you want do for a lollipop?” Kara asked with a laugh. 

A devious smirk came over Sam’s face, “Wouldn’t you like to know?” she responded, throwing in a wink for good measure. 

Even after she had been dating them for months now (and over a year in Lena’s case) both Kara’s girlfriends possessed an uncanny ability to turn Kara into a stuttering mess with a single dirty comment or wink. Kara briefly contemplated sneaking off trying to sneak off into the one of the DEO storerooms so she could live out some of the thoughts rushing through her head right now, but she couldn’t really think of a way to pull that off that wouldn’t make them late for meeting Lena. Besides, the last time she and Sam had snuck off into one of the storerooms (after a particularly intense mission), Alex had walked in on them. Sam had been quite amused by the whole thing, but Kara and Alex had both been mortified and she wasn’t exactly looking to repeat that part of the experience. 

Resigning herself to putting any fun times on hold for now, Kara refocused her attention on the blocks they were supposed to be destroying. Kara wasn’t really sure what possible data they could be still gathering after they had already smashed hundreds of blocks, but, at least they were getting candy for their efforts now. 

Kara walked over to the nearest pile of blocks and unleashed a stomp that not only knocked over the pile of blocks she had been aiming for but three other piles as well. A momentary sheepiness quickly passed as Kara realized that just meant more lollipops. 

* * *

Vasquez ended up having to bring in a few more crates full of blocks for Kara and Sam to handle, but the whole candy for blocks system made it really easy to track who had managed to smash more blocks, which had just ramped up the competitiveness between the two heroes. Supergirl had more fighting experience and control over her powers, but Sam had more raw power behind her abilities so it made for a close battle. 

Sam had a inkling that Lena was up to something; even if the tests Vasquez was running were real tests, Vasquez should have gathered all the data she could possibly need hours ago. And now that Lena had asked them to meet her at 4:30, Sam surmised that had to be connected to why Vasquez had been stalling them with these tests. Whatever surprise Lena might have in store though, Sam didn’t want to ruin it, so she had decided to play along when Vasquez had brought food into the equation (the fact that lollipops were her favorite didn’t hurt either). 

As she and Kara took turns smashing cubes, Sam tried to figure out just what Lena might have in store for them. She had gone through her mental calendar; it wasn’t their anniversary, it wasn’t anyone’s birthday (Maggie’s was the closest, but that was still weeks away and if it was something for Maggie there would be no reason to keep Kara and Sam in the dark about it), the closest holiday was the 4th of July, but that wasn’t really one of those holidays that triggered a lot of surprise celebrations. Maybe this was just an excuse for some alone time for the three of them? The lab was closed now so they wouldn't have to worry about anyone walking in on them, but it seemed pretty unlikely that Lena would have gotten Vasquez involved in the plan if it was just a sex thing. Whatever Lena had in store for them, Sam definitely was excited to find out. 

“Okay, I think that’s the last of them,” Vasquez said, gesturing to the two cubes Kara had just crushed together with her bare hands. “This information should, uh, be very informative.” Vasquez said, kind of just waving her hand at the console that had been collecting a variety of readings over the last few hours. 

“So we can go now?” Kara asked, already starting to pull off the various sensors that had been attached to her outfit before Vasquez had a chance to open her mouth. 

“Yeah,” Vasquez nodded. “Get out of my hair. Go do science with your girlfriend.”

The two heroes wasted no time leaving the DEO. Seconds later they were touching down in an alley around the corner from the address Lena gave. A fraction of a second after that and the two women had safely stowed their outfits and were walking out of the alley. 

“I wonder what Lena wants us to do,” Kara mused. 

“As long as it doesn’t involve crushing blocks, I don’t care,” Sam joked. 

When they arrived at the front entrance of the building, they found that the front door was ajar. They looked inside and were greet with an empty lobby. 

Kara instantly tensed beside her and Sam felt herself doing the same. If Lena really had something planned, this was probably just part of it. Still, better safe than sorry. 

“The walls. They are all lead,” Kara reported. “I can’t see anything.” 

“It is a laboratory,” Sam reasoned. “Who knows what sort of experiments they used to do here.”

“Are you the CFO? Shouldn’t you know what they were doing here?”   
Shaking her head at Kara, Sam gave a small laugh. “Do you know how many labs L-Corp has in National City alone? It’s hard to keep track of them all. I think they were doing something with plants, maybe? But who knows what sorts of shit they got up to back when this was a LexCorp lab.” 

“You don’t think… they wouldn’t be doing anything with zombies, right?” Kara wondered. 

“There are no such thing as zombies, Kar. And even if there were, Lena would never do experiments on zombies.” 

“Of course not!” Kara gasped, affronted by the implication that she could have thought such a thing. “But nobody creates zombies on purpose. One minute, you are trying to create some revolutionary new cure and then, bam, the next moment, your cure for cancer ends up creating a zombie outbreak.” 

“I think you have been watching too much _Z Nation_ , babe,” Sam teased. Sure they were entering the dimly lit lobby of a defunct laboratory, but the idea of zombies was silly. Wasn’t it?

“I don’t hear anything,” Kara added after a moment. “Can you hear anything?” 

Sam extended her senses, but it was silent. She shook her head. All the facts still fit with Lena planning a surprise, but the more on edge Kara got, the more Sam started to second guess herself.  

“I just called Lena’s phone but it went to voicemail. I don’t like this. Should we change back into our superhero outfits? If there’s trouble, we can’t really do much fighting like this,” Kara wondered.

After making a quick scan of the room to ensure there weren’t any cameras, the two women switched back to their superhero personas in the blink of an eye. 

There were three doors along the back of the lobby. The first two were closed but the third swung open ominously. Even with their powers, they couldn’t see anything beyond the murky darkness of the open doorway. Ominous or not, that seemed like the first place they should check. 

Sam hadn’t even realized it but the two women had been speaking in somewhat hushed tones since they first entered the building. It wasn’t until she jumped when Kara called out, “Lena? Are you there?” that Sam realized just how still and quiet everything had been. Both women strained their hearing to listen for any response from their girlfriend. The silence persisted. 

“I’m going in,” Kara said, gesturing to the open door, before turning back to Sam. “Watch my back.” 

Nodding grimly, Sam floated a few feet in the air and glided along behind Kara, eyes peeled for any sign of trouble. 

Just as Kara reached the door, she vanished. One moment she was there, the next just gone. Kara could move very, very quickly when she wanted to, but since her own powers had awoken, Sam’s never had any problem following that movement. This time though, it was like Kara had just vanished. 

Instincts kicking in, Sam didn’t hesitate, she flew towards where Kara had just disappeared, quickly picking up speed.

An instant later she slammed into a solid object which she realized was the woman who had just disappeared. The force of the impact sent them both stumbling to the ground in a tangle of limbs. 

“What the hell?” Sam asked, as she struggled to out from under Kara and back on to her feet. 

Catching movement out of the corner of her eye Sam swung her head around to spot a sheepish looking Lena next to Ruby, Alex and Maggie, the latter three of which were already laughing. 

“Uh, surprise?” Lena said as she walked over to where her girlfriends still lay on the floor. 

“What the hell, Lee?” Sam asked. “Kara just disappeared into thin air!” 

“Well, it is a surprise party,” Lena explained. “You are supposed to be surprised. It’s kind of hard surprising someone with super senses though so I spent the last few weeks adapting my invisibility cloak. I was able to get it to project an invisibility field and  got it to block any audible sound in addition to blocking the visible light spectrum.” 

“That’s why we couldn’t hear anything!” Kara said from where she was still sprawled out on the floor. 

“I left the front door open for you. I figured you would walk in, then we would jump out and yell ‘surprise’ and that would be that,” Lena said. “I wasn’t expecting you to come tumbling in a heap.” 

“Yeah, that was mostly me,” Sam admitted. “We were kind of freaked out by the whole eerily quiet and deserted lab thing, and then Kara started going on about zombies, and so we might have been a little on edge. 

“I was right behind Supergirl and when she entered the room she just poof… disappeared. So I rushed in help her. Since I couldn’t see her, I had no way of knowing she was still right in front of me.” 

“So that’s why you ploughed right in to me?” Kara asked with a smile on her face, assuring Sam she wasn’t upset with her.  “I had a split second to be surprised when the darkened room I was seeing suddenly became a brightly lit room and then bam, I’m hit from behind and then I’m sprawled out on the floor.”

“I’m so sorry, Sam. You too, Kara,” Lena said. “I wasn’t trying to make things spooky and I certainly didn’t want to scare either of you; I didn’t account for how the field works or that one of you might just blink out of existence as far as the other was concerned. I was just wanting to surprise you.” 

Sam laughed as let Lena help pull her to feet. “Well, it was certainly a surprise. What exactly was—”

The rest of Sam’s question was cut-off by Kara’s excited shriek. “It’s Christmas!” 

Looking around, Sam realized that the hero was correct. The large room they found themselves in looked like it may have once been a cafeteria, but now it was lavishly decked out with Christmas decorations. The walls were adorned with fake snow, wreaths, and other decorations. A small tree was set up in the corner, adorned with lights, tinsel and various baubles. And along one side of the room a rather large buffet had been set up.

The room was also full of their friends. She had spotted Ruby, Alex and Maggie standing by Lena when they first entered, but Winn, James and Lyra were over by the buffet table, Lyra apparently helping herself to some crab puffs. And over by the tree, Eliza was standing next to Eve and Jess along with Charlene, Verna and Saul, three of the DEO agents that were part of a special squad J’onn had put together, dedicated to assisting Sam and Kara when one or both of them were in the field. It seemed like pretty much the entire super family was present other than J’onn and Vasquez.  

Ruby came up to join her mother. “That was quite the entrance, mom. Very heroic,” the young woman teased.  

“I was just trying to make sure that Kara was okay,” Sam tried to justify. “I really wasn’t expecting an invisible barrier. It took me off-guard!”

“Nobody told me what was going on tonight either,” Ruby countered. “Yet when I came in here with Maggie, I managed not fall on the floor. And I don’t even have any superpowers yet,” Ruby joked. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Sam responded. “Come on, give your mom a hug.” 

Ruby did as she asked, giving her mom a quick hug, before walking over and giving Kara a hug. “Isn’t this awesome?” The teen asked, gesturing to the room around them. 

“So awesome!” Was Kara’s response, a wide grin on her face. She swung Ruby around in her arms, laughing with the young woman. 

After setting Ruby down, the hero repeated the process with Lena. “This is amazing, Lee!” 

“Kara’s right,” Sam agreed. “This is amazing.” Lena had truly outdone herself. 

* * *

After she finished greeting Lena and Ruby, Kara had made quickly loaded up a plate of food from the buffet table before making the rounds to greet everyone else. She knew that it would be polite to greet everyone before she started helping herself to the buffet, but it all looked and smelled so good. And it’s not like other people hadn’t started eating already! Plus, thanks to her super speed, it took less than a second to have a plate overflowing with potstickers, a couple slices of pizza, some sort of rice dish, a few chicken wings and a carrot stick topped with whip cream (Lena had been trying to get her to include more vegetables in her diet lately; Kara had been trying. She really had. But it was tough. Still she was proud of herself for taking that carrot stick). 

Deciding to hold off on the ice cream until at least her second plate of food, Kara wandered over to where Alex and Maggie were attempting to hook up a karaoke machine. “I suppose you two helped planned this whole thing,” she said. 

“I got off pretty easy,” Maggie admitted. “My job was just to keep Ruby occupied and then bring her here once everything was ready. Alex and Lena have been here since 10:30, getting everything set up.”

“Really, Alex?” Kara asked. “You spent all whole day setting up for a Christmas party? You skipped work to set up for a party? You don’t even like Christmas when it’s in December!”

The other woman just shrugged. “Yeah, but I know how much you love it. And it seemed important to Lena. So I figured it was worth taking a vacation day. But don’t think I’m going to be doing this every time a Christmas party rolls around!” 

Temporarily handing her mostly full plate of food to Maggie, Kara pulled her sister into a tight hug. “Thank you for being the best sister.” 

“Come on, Kar,” Alex responded, returning the hug. “You know I would do anything for you. Even if it involves climbing on to a chair to hang ridiculous Christmas banners.” 

“I love you. So, so much,” Kara sniffed. 

“Hey, now. No crying.” Alex said after letting go of the hug. “We both know if you cry, I’m going to cry. I’m pretty sure I’ve already ruined my reputation with most of the people in this room, but as far as Ward, Andrews and Ortega know, I’m still the badass DEO agent that never cries,” Alex joked. 

“Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me,” Kara reassured. “And if anyone knows about keeping stuff a secret, it’s Supergirl.” 

“You suck at secrets!” 

“Do not!” Kara huffed. 

“On Saturday, the hotdog guy at the park gave you the ‘Supergirl Special’!”

“Well, of course. I am Supergirl.” Kara countered. “Why wouldn’t he give me the Supergirl Special?” Really, Alex could be so silly sometimes. 

“You weren’t wearing your Supergirl uniform at the time!” Crap, Alex was right. 

“Okay, so maybe that one time. But still!” 

Alex looked like she was going to say something, but instead just shook her head. Clearly this was a sign she recognized Kara’s excellent espionage skills. “Let’s just enjoy the party.” 

* * *

The party had been in full swing for a couple hours before anyone noticed the small box carefully wrapped in shiny silver wrapping paper that Lena had nestled under the tree, way in the back, while she and Alex were setting up. Lena had assumed Kara, who had spent several minutes gushing over the tree while taking a small break before her third trip back to the buffet table, would have been the first to spot it; or maybe eagle-eyed (she mentally applauded herself for the pun) Sam would have. She was surprised that Ruby had actually been the first to spot it. A fact she realized when she heard a gasped, “There are presents?!” shouted from across the room. 

“There are?!” While Kara may not have noticed the small package, she had definitely picked up on Ruby’s words and an instant later the hero was beside the young woman as they both knelt down to examine the neatly wrapped gift. 

“You got us a present?” The woman asked, practically bouncing with excitement, once Lena had made her way to join them. The happy look on Kara’s face was quickly replaced with a small frown. “But, we didn’t get you anything…” 

Lena chuckled. “I know you didn’t,, darling. I certainly wouldn’t expect you to have purchased a gift for a surprise party I was throwing for you.” 

The logic of Lena’s argument did little to placate her girlfriend. “But it’s not fair that we get a present and you don’t. Especially since you are the one that went to all the trouble of giving us Second Christmas!

“It’ll be okay,” Kara reasoned. “Sam and I have superspeed. We can just zip right out and be back here with presents in tow before you even have a chance to miss us!” 

Kara started muttering to herself about ideas for presents, Lena was pretty sure she heard something about a capybara, before Lena interrupted. “I don’t need a gift.” 

“Lee!” Kara protested, clearly not at all impressed with that idea. “Of course you do! It’s Christmas! Well, not regular Christmas, but it’s Second Christmas and if we are getting a present then you better be getting one too!” 

She had promised herself she wouldn’t get cheesy while until after the party was over, but Lena realized if she didn’t want to end up looking after a capybara, she was going to have to do it now. “I’m spending Christmas surrounded by our friends and the three women I love most in the whole universe. I promise you, no gift is going to top that,” Lena reassured. 

“Fine,” Kara acquiesced. “But I still get to buy you a present tomorrow!” She added with a tone that brooked no argument. 

“Me too!” Ruby added with a firm nod. 

“And me,” Sam added, shouted from across the room, having obviously been following the conversation. 

Lena had expected as much. Lena had done her best to make sure none of them had any inkling of her Second Christmas plans and so obviously there is no way she could have let them know to buy presents. She had briefly toyed with the idea of buying presents for herself ‘from’ Kara, Sam and Ruby just to avoid this very situation, but she discarded the idea since she figured that the three would insist that didn’t count.  She did make a mental note to have a talk with Kara later about why animals didn’t make great presents (though she also realized that even raising the subject was almost certain to lead to them getting a pet sooner or later). 

“But we still get to open the present today, right?” Ruby asked, turning the package over in her hands, eying the seams of the wrapping. 

“You do,” Lena agreed. “But not just yet. I figured it would be more of an end of the night kind of thing.”

“That’s fair,” Kara allowed with suspicious ease. 

“You’re right. It is fair,” Lena smiled. Thankfully Lena had already anticipated what the other woman was clearly planning. “ And to make sure it stays fair, I used a lead-based wrapping paper.” 

“Geez, you steal a peak at one present and then it’s like suddenly nobody trusts you anymore,” Kara gasped, acting affronted. 

“So you weren’t about to check and see what was inside the box?” Lena asked. 

“Of course not!” Kara protested. Lena just raised a single eyebrow in response and waited. Kara stared backed, refusing to break. For all of five seconds, at least. Then Kara mumbled, “Maybe…” 

Lena just laughed. She knew her girlfriend all too well. “Let’s just enjoy the party, sweetie. It’ll be time to open the present soon enough.” 

“In the meantime, I think I know something that can distract us,” Sam purred. 

“Um, traumatized minor right here!” Ruby protested, putting her hands over her ears. 

“I was talking about playing Mario Kart!” Sam answered. “Geez, Rubes, not everything is about sex.” 

“Oh, of course,” Lena answered, trying to keep the disappointment from her voice. She had already been mentally cataloguing which rooms in the building would be best for a little alone time with Kara and Sam, balancing out distance from the party and types of furniture each room held. “Yeah, that’s what I thought you were talking about. Mario Kart.” 

“Lyra, Alex, Winn and Verna have been over there playing it for the last half hour,” Sam added, gesturing to the foursome huddled together around the 60 inch TV set up in one corner of the room. Lena wasn’t even aware that someone had brought Mario Kart, but she guessed Winn must have brought his Switch along. “I figure maybe we should go give them a run for their money.”

“Just as long as I can be Koopa Troopa!” Kara answered, looking around to see if anyone would challenge her. 

“You’re always Koopa Troopa,” Lena just laughed. 

“That’s because he’s the best!” Kara insisted. Lena was partial to Bowser herself, but she was happy to play as other characters. Kara, however, always insisted on using Koopa Troopa, no matter which iteration of Mario Kart they were playing. No matter how many times Winn, Lena or Alex argued that Koopa Troopa wasn’t the best choice statistically, no matter how many times someone else beat her because of the character’s low top speed, no matter what new characters were introduced in each new version of the game, Kara steadfastly stuck with her little turtle. 

Because of her character choice, Kara didn’t win that often, but each and every single time she did, she did an adorable little celebratory dance. Lena may or may not have thrown more than one game of Mario Kart just to see that dance. 

“Come on,” Lena said with a smile, taking Kara by one hand and wrapping her other arm around Ruby and Sam, “Let’s go kick some DEO ass.” 

“Technically, Lyra’s not part of the DEO,” Sam pointed out. 

While Winn was a DEO employee, the other two members of their crime-fighting trio were not. They still worked with the DEO, especially when a city-wide crisis arose, but they generally focused on bank robbers, muggers, burglars and other more run-of-the-mill criminals (alien or otherwise) while Supergirl, Scarlett Eagle and the DEO focused their efforts on more of the supervillain types. It was an arrangement that worked well for all involved. 

With a shrug, Lena answered, “Close enough.” 

* * *

An hour of Mario Kart and not one, but two, Kara Danvers victory dances later and the party was starting to wind down. Sam guessed that the downside of creating your own personal holiday on a Tuesday is that everyone still had to work the next day. Well, technically she knew Lena wouldn’t have to. And Sam knew that Lena would gladly give Kara, Sam and anyone else at the party that worked for CatCo or L-Corp the day off, but she also knew there was no way Lena would take a day off work just because she had been up late the night before; even the infamous Kara Danvers pout had no chance against Lena’s work ethic. And neither Sam nor Kara would feel right taking the day off if Lena wasn’t. 

A little surprisingly, Alex and Maggie had been the first ones to call it a night. And, as is often the case with parties, once the first people had left, it triggered a pretty steady stream of departures. Sam, Kara and Lena were still there, of course, huddled on the couch where they had been playing Mario Kart. Ruby, for her part, was sitting at one of the tables playing some card game Lyra was teaching Ruby, James and Winn. Luckily, Ruby was on summer break so Sam didn’t feel like a bad parent for keeping her daughter out late on what would otherwise be a school night. 

The three woman on the sofa had stopped playing Mario Kart about 20 minutes ago, and now were just enjoying each other’s company. Kara was on the far end of the couch, with Lena cuddled up next to her, with Sam snuggled in to Lena’s other side. 

Sam sighed happily, “Thanks again for tonight, Lena. It’s been amazing.” 

Kara, stroking Lena’s hair, agreed. “I think this may just be my favorite Christmas yet.” 

“I’m glad to hear it,” Lena responded quietly. “I know how much both of you had been looking forward to Christmas last year. It was supposed to be our first Christmas together. But, then with everything that happened...” 

Sam didn’t actually have any memories of Christmas Day 2017 as Reign had taken over on Christmas Eve. Kara, of course, had been in a coma when they should have been opening presents on Christmas morning. A coma that Sam, or rather Reign, had caused. 

Kara had never once blamed Sam for what Reign had done, but it had taken Sam some time to accept that lack of blame. Even after Lena had explained the nature of Reign’s programming and Sam’s own origins, the guilt had been overwhelming. She had blamed herself for all Reign’s crimes, but none more so than what Reign to Kara.

The fact that Kara had recovered before Sam had even found out the truth about Reign was of some comfort. She had been horrified enough to learn what Reign had done, but at least she hadn’t had to see the extent of the damage she caused to her girlfriend first hand. Sam still doesn’t know what she would have done if Reign had actually killed Supergirl during their fight. Thankfully, even after all this time, Sam only remembered hazy bits and pieces of Reign’s memories. She had watched the news coverage of the fight though as soon as she had heard about it. Kara and Lena had tried to downplay just how bad it had been, but from the news footage (and the information she was able to pry out of Kara and Lena after watching said news footage), Reign easily could have finished the job. Sam had thanked any and all gods that may be out there that the villain had not done so. 

They could have still celebrated Christmas after Sam had been released from DEO custody in early January. In fact, they technically had. But by the time Sam had gotten released, the cute little Christmas tree that they had picked out was dead, its needles fallen on the presents below, covering the thankfully still wrapped gifts in a sea of brown and green. 

It had still been a special night, but it was fraught with many complicated emotions: joy, sorrow, guilt, relief, fear, a whole myriad of emotions ran through the four of them that night as they opened the carefully picked out gifts and celebrated that they had kept their little family intact. It definitely hadn’t been the traditional Christmas experience they had all been looking forward to. 

Tonight though, sure, it was 85 degrees outside and their tree was made of plastic, but they had been surrounded by family and friends and it was just perfect. Even if it was Second Christmas, this was the kind of Christmas Sam had dreamed of. 

“Kara’s right,” Sam agreed. “Best Christmas ever.” 

“Anything for my loves,” Lena responded, reaching over and interlocking her fingers with Kara. 

Sam did the same with Kara’s other hand, practically laying on top of Lena in order to accomplish the feat. 

It wasn’t just that everyone had been steadfast in their support that had helped Sam get through the last six months. Finding out that Kara was Supergirl, and knowing what Kara had gone through and that the woman was still able to have so much joy in her heart showed Sam that it was possible to get through what had happened to her too. 

Kara had suffered a lot of pain and sorrow in her life; that pain would always be a part of her, but she didn’t let the pain define her, so Sam resolved to follow her girlfriend’s example. It hadn’t always been easy, especially those first few weeks after she had been cured, but every day she felt more like the Sam she had been before she found out that a her body had been the vessel for a world destroyer. Sam knew she would never be who she was before (and that would be true even if she wasn’t a literal superhero now), but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be happy. Kara was her proof of that. 

The three women passed the next half hour or so cuddled together on the couch. They would speak from time to time, but no words were needed. They were happy to just be. It wasn’t until the card game wrapped up that Sam got off the couch to see how everyone else was doing.

Judging by the huge smile on Ruby’s face, the game had obviously gone well for her daughter, but Sam still asked, “So, who won?” 

“We did!” Ruby said, a huge smile on the girl’s face as she gestured to Lyra. 

“It was hardly a fair match,” Winn whined. “Tonight’s the first time James and I have ever played Fizzbin.”

“It was my first time too!” Ruby protested. “Didn’t stop Lyra and I from beating you!”

“Yeah, but Lyra probably plays it all the time,” Winn countered with a pout.

“Oh, Lyra’s a big Fizzbin expert, eh?” Sam asked, raising her eyebrows. 

“Yep!” Lyra replied with a nod, clearly trying to repress a grin. “We played it all the time on Beta Antares IV.”

Sam was impressed. She had no idea that apparently Lyra was huge sci-fi nerd. Lyra and Sam looked at each other for several seconds before both women broke out into laughter. 

“What’s so funny?” James asked, brow furrowed. 

“You just spent the last hour playing Fizzbin!” Sam pointed out. 

“Yeah,” Winn agreed. “Though not very well.”

Shaking her head, Sam teased, “I get James not catching on; I don’t think he’s much of a Trekkie, but seriously how have you not connected the dots yet, Winn? You’re like the biggest Trek fan I’ve ever met.”  

For several seconds, Winn was silent, clearly trying to figure out what Sam was talking about before a look of realization washed over his face. “Fizzbin’s not real! Kirk made it up!” 

“Took you long enough,” Lyra joked, rolling her eyes with good natured exasperation. 

“Uh, anyone want to fill me in?” James asked. 

“It’s from an episode of _Star Trek_ ,” Sam explained. “Kirk was taken prisoner and the guys guarding him are playing cards, so he makes up a card game with incredibly convoluted rules to distract some mobsters and make his escape.” 

“So that’s why you kept ‘remembering’ new rules as we were playing!” Winn accused. 

Lyra just shook her head and laughed. “Hey, it’s not my fault you didn’t remember what Fizzbin was! I brought it up as a joke, but when you never realized what was going on, I figured it’d give Ruby and I a chance to have some fun and kick your asses at the same time!” 

“Rubes was the only one to catch on to what I was up to,” Lyra added. 

Laughing at his own expense, James held up a hand to high-five Ruby. “Well good job to both of you! I had no idea. I mean, I was wondering why anyone would want to play a game with such complicated rules, but I thought maybe it was just a Valerian thing.” 

“I have to say,” Sam added, “I wouldn’t have pegged you as a Trekkie, Lyra.” 

“When I first came to Earth as a kid, aliens were still forced to stay in hiding,” Lyra explained. “Which definitely isn’t easy when you look like, well, this,” Lyra said, gesturing to her very clearly not human facial features. 

“Let me tell you, it sucked,” Lyra continued with a wry chuckle. “As far as most humans knew, aliens only existed in sci-fi books, movies and TV shows. And even in that sci-fi, we were almost always the bad guys. Aliens were the scary boogeymen, abducting people or trying to conquer humanity or things like that. 

“But then there was _Star Trek_ ,” Lyra added, smiling fondly. “Did you know that _Star Trek: Voyager_ was the first network TV show to cast an actual alien?”

Sam nodded. “I remember.” Shortly after Superman’s debut forced everyone to accept that alien life was a real thing, a refugee ship carrying a few hundred Talaxians had arrived on Earth. Maybe it was because of the timing, or just the perpetually cheerful nature of their species, but most Talaxians had chosen to live openly in society. They faced a lot of backlash for it, but they also paved the way for a lot of other aliens to come out of hiding down the road. 

“That was huge. But it wasn’t just that they cast an alien. It was the whole franchise. Watching a show where humans and aliens were not only not trying to kill each other, but were working together, side by side as friends, colleagues and lovers, it gave me hope. Hope that maybe one day I’d be able to walk around in public without having to hide my face. That one day humans wouldn’t care what planet someone was from, you know?” 

Ever since Sam had found out that aliens were real, she had been an avid supporter for alien rights, but it had never occurred to Sam just how much pop culture had been anti-alien. Even when aliens were no more than fictional creations, aliens had often been the sinister other designed to frighten humans. She wondered just how much the existence of organizations like CADMUS was the result of that. 

Even after six months finding out, Sam had a hard time with identifying as anything other than human. It’s not that she didn’t like being Kryptonian (or Kryptonianish, at least); it’s just that all her life she had always been human as far as she knew. So even though she now spent a good chunk of her average day flying around the city and using her superpowers to fight crime, she would often forget that she wasn’t human. That when one of the blowhards on Fox News went on an anti-alien rant, he wasn’t just attacking her friends, and her girlfriend, but Sam as well. And her daughter. 

Sam wasn’t sure how to fix the problem, but she made up her mind there and then to try and get more involved with alien rights causes. She knew L-Corp sponsored several organizations. She would have to see if she could find one that suited her. 

“I’m glad _Star Trek_ could help,” Sam offered, turning her mind back to her friend and their conversation. 

“It was nice to have that escape, you know?” 

“I know exactly what you mean.” Sam may have been new to this whole being an alien thing, but being kicked out of your home as a pregnant teenager definitely teaches you the value of a bit of escapism now and then. 

The conversation soon shifted to what their favorite _Star Trek_ episodes were and a debate over which _Star Trek_ series was best. Ruby had latched on to _Star Trek_ at a young age, so she was well suited to join in the discussion. 

James did his best to keep up with them, but his knowledge of _Star Trek_ was limited to episodes that Lyra and/or Winn had forced him to watch so he mostly kept silent. At least until Lyra and Winn started to get into a heated argument about whether or not the animated series should be considered canon. At that point, he jumped in and suggested perhaps it was time to go. Though the way that Lyra and Winn were looking at each other as they argued, Sam suspected that perhaps arguing about _Star Trek_ was some sort of nerdy form of foreplay for them, so that may have been why James was in such a hurry to get the three of them home. 

* * *

After another round of hugs and well-wishes, Lyra, Winn and James had left; Kara closing the door behind them as they departed. She waited until her friends were out of earshot before sighing, “I didn’t think they would ever leave.”

Realizing how that sounded she added, “Don’t get me wrong, tonight has been like my favorite night so far this year. It was great having almost the whole family together to celebrate Christmas. Lena, I can’t thank you enough for this.” 

“But?” Lena asked. From the smirk on the woman’s face, Kara knew that Lena was well aware why Kara was glad everyone had finally left. 

“But it’s been like three and a half hours since we found out that there’s a present just sitting there waiting for us to open it!” Kara huffed. Kara had many superpowers, but patience really wasn’t one of them. 

Making a show of checking watch, Lena teased, “You know, it’s getting pretty late. And we’ve got work tomorrow. Maybe we should just wait to open the present tomorrow evening?” 

“Lena!” Kara protested, stomping her foot and pouting. 

When Lena only laughed, Kara turned to her fellow Kryptonian. “Sam! Tell Lena to stop being mean.”  

Laughing, Sam did as she was told. “Come on, babe, you know that Kara hates to wait.”  

“Fine, I suppose we can open the present tonight then,” Lena allowed. Kara was pretty sure there was no way that Lena would have really made them wait, but it was good to know for sure. 

Not wanting to waste any more time, Kara used her powers to zip over to the tree, grab the present, zip back and hold the gift out between the four of them. “Who gets to do the honors?”

“It’s for all of you, so you should open it together,” Lena suggested. 

Everyone was on board with the idea, but it turns out that having three people try to unwrap a present at the same time when the present is a 3 inch by 3 inch by 3 inch cube was not so easy. After several seconds of fumbling, Lena suggested they take turns. Ruby ripped off the rest of the wrapping paper, Sam opened the box revealing a smaller box within which Kara pulled out and opened. 

Within the smaller box were three ordinary looking keys. Kara’s first thought was that they were keys for the apartment that she and Lena shared. But that didn’t make much sense because it was Kara’s apartment too. And they had given spare keys to Sam and Ruby months ago. That could only mean—  

“You got us Go-Karts?!” Ruby shouted, breaking Kara’s line of thought. The teen ran over and gave the confused Lena a Supergirl worthy hug. 

“What?” Lena gasped. “No, I didn’t buy you Go-Karts! Why in the world would you think that?” 

“Come on, Lena,” Ruby laughed. “The cat’s out of the bag now. Or I guess, the kart is?” Picking up one of the keys, she pointed to the type on the head of the key. “It says ‘Trailmaster’ right there!”

Squinting, Lena looked at the spot on the key where Ruby was pointing. Right there, just like Ruby said, was the word ‘Trailmaster.” “Crap. Um, it’s, well they aren’t keys for Go-Karts. Though if you really want a Go-Kart, I am sure we can look at getting you one for your birthday,” Lena rambled uncharacteristically. 

Shaking her head as if to try and get herself back on track, Lena continued. “The keys are really just symbolic. I bought them at one of those key places. You can’t really wrap a biometric scan in a box, so I figured the keys would convey the right message. I clearly didn’t look at them closely enough or I would have gotten keys that didn’t mention Go-Karts. Um, okay, one second,” Lena said as she reached into her purse and pulled out a folded piece of paper.

As she unfolded the well-creased paper to reveal an image, she continued. “I kinda bought us this house?” As she said this, she turned the paper in her shaking hands so that it was visible to the three women. The picture appeared to have been printed from a real estate website and  showed a house that was less of a house and more of a three-story mansion. 

“We’ve been talking about getting a place for months now, but between jobs, and school, and two of us being superheroes, I know we haven’t really had time to go actually look for places. So, I’ve kind of being keeping track of everything everyone has said they wanted in a dream house. And this place had most of it, so I bought it. It doesn’t have quite everything we dreamed of, but what it doesn’t have we can build.” 

Looking up from the paper, Lena looked at Kara, Sam and Ruby. “Why hasn’t anyone said anything yet?” Lena asked and then without pausing for even a moment, she continued. “You hate it don’t you? Oh, god. You do! I should have asked before I just went out and bought a house. I can be so stupid sometimes. It’s okay. We can buy another house. Or we can just forget this whole—” 

Kara had been kind of blown away by how amazing her girlfriend was and hadn’t said anything at first, but when she realized that Lena was beginning to spiral into self-doubt, she forced herself into action. “Lena, breathe!” she said, placing her hands on Lena’s biceps. “I love it.” 

“You do?” Lena asked, looking like she was on the verge of tears. 

“Of course, I do,” Kara answered with a firm nod. “You bought us our freaking dreamhouse! Sure, I’ve only seen this picture so far, but you know us better than anyone. If you think this is the house for us, then I know it’ll be amazing.” 

“Kara’s right,” Sam said. “And I, for one, am looking forward to not having to split our time between our two places. Nothing would make me happier than for our family to have a house with all four of us.” 

“Mom’s right,” Ruby agreed. “Our house isn’t really big enough for four; your guys’ apartment is nice and all, but I don’t really like living out of a guest room. Besides, if the new place does suck, you can always buy us another house,” Ruby teased. 

“So I didn’t fuck up?” Lena asked, voice quiet. Clearly she was still worried she had overstepped. 

“Not even a little,” Kara answered. “This is fucking amazing!” 

“And you know you did something amazing if you got Kara to swear,” Sam joked before her expression turned more serious. “This is honestly one of the best things anyone has ever done for me. You’re giving our family a home, Lena,” Sam added. 

“Yeah,” Kara agreed. “Now come on,” she added, wrapping an arm around Lena and reaching the other towards Sam and Ruby. “I think it’s group hug time!” 

* * *

A couple hours later, back at Lena and Kara’s apartment, an exhausted Lena collapsed back on to the king-size bed, nestling between her girlfriends. She could see the slight sheen of sweat glistening on all three of them from the red light that bathed the room. “Installing red sun lights in the bedroom was the best idea ever,” she sighed. 

“I think the best idea ever was when you decided to install sound-proofing when you installed the lighting,” Sam countered. “Ruby definitely doesn’t need to hear us. Especially since Kara’s a bit of a screamer.”

“Hey, you try having to keep control of your powers during sex for a decade, and then tell me it doesn’t feel amazing to be able to just let go,” Kara answered with a pout. “I think I should be allowed to enjoy myself.” 

“I’m just teasing, babe,” Sam answered. “You know I love the sounds you make.” 

“And it’s not like Sam’s any quieter,” Lena added with a smirk. 

“I seem to remember a certain someone who had to postpone a press conference after straining her vocal cords,” Sam countered. 

“Maybe we’re all just amazing at sex?” Kara suggested.

“Mmm, I can agree with that,” Lena said, rolling over on her side wrap an arm around Kara. A moment later, she felt Sam do the same to Lena, the three of them spooned together on the bed. 

As amazing as it felt to be snuggled safely between the the two Kryptonians, Lena was glad she had remembered to crank up the A/C before their clothes had started coming off. She would have loathed getting back out of bed, but she had learned from past experience that it was definitely not possible to sleep when cuddled up with Sam and Kara unless the A/C was on the highest setting, especially on nights like this one where she was in the middle. 

“So, best Christmas yet?” Lena asked, echoing their earlier conversation. 

“Best Christmas yet,” Kara agreed. “It’s going to be a hard one to top. I mean, I definitely don’t have the kind of money to buy us a house as a Christmas present. Still, though, this will be the first real Kara Zor-El Danvers Christmas for the four of us so you know I’m going to pull out all the stops.” 

Laughing, Sam quipped, “Knowing you, I’m sure you’ve already got a notepad full of ideas.”

“Three of them. I’m full of awesome Christmas ideas,” Kara boasted. “The tough part is finding time to execute them.” 

“Well, you’ve got nearly six months to figure something out,” Lena responded.

“Six months!?” Kara shouted, a tinge of outrage in her voice. “More like a month! Have you forgotten Christmas in July?” 

“Uh, didn’t we just have Christmas in July? Like an hour ago?” Sam asked. 

“No way!” Kara protested. “It’s June 26th. Well, June 27th now,” she corrected with a nod to the alarm clock beside their bed. “It’s not July yet. Therefore, this wasn’t Christmas in July. Which means that in just under a month, we’re going to get to celebrate Christmas all over again!” 

Under ordinary circumstances, the idea of three Christmases in one calendar year would not be something Lena was looking forward to. But one look at the excitement on Kara’s face was enough to convince her that Christmas in July should definitely still be a thing. There was no way that Lena would even think about trying to deny Kara something she was clearly this excited about. So she chose to embrace the event instead, “I can’t wait.” 

“Mmm,” Sam agreed softly. “You always have amazing parties, Kar.” 

It was in that moment, comfortably spooned between her girlfriends, as Kara and Sam traded banter and ideas about what they could do for Christmas in July that Lena realized that soon they would be moved into their new house and this would be a regular night for them. They might not ever be able to get married in a traditional ceremony, but there was no doubt in her mind that she would be sharing her bed with these two amazing women for the rest of her life. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: Originally Sam's superhero name was going to be Captain Liberty, both as a counterpoint to Reign and as a tribute to the first live action version of The Tick, but then once word got out about Agent Liberty and the Children of Liberty being a thing in season four, I figured that would get confusing so I had to come up with a new name for Sam's alterego. 
> 
> Sorry for taking so long with this. As you may have guessed, I had some trouble wrapping this story up. This is actually the fourth version of the epilogue. It turned out there's a ton of fallout to deal with after the end of chapter 18. 
> 
> I wrote about 10000 words of an epilogue touching on how Sam reacts to have been Reign (and sort of being an artificial life form), Sam deciding to be a superhero, the DEO and the government having to decide how to handle Reign's crimes, and a whole lot more. There was scene I really liked between Ruby and Lena where Ruby was begging Lena to take her safety more seriously because now that her mom was becoming a superhero, she wanted to have at least one parental figure where she didn't have to worry about them dying. Ultimately though, there were too many issues for the characters to deal with in an epilogue (it would have easily matched the length of the rest of the story to tackle everything I wanted) so I started over a couple times. Then my dog peed on my laptop, frying the hard drive and forcing me to buy a new computer (and sadly I had neglected backing up those drafts) I had up to that point were lost and it took me a while to actually give this another shot, but I really wanted to give our heroes the happy ending they deserved so here we are. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this story!
> 
> I have something new in the works that I'm hoping to start releasing before the new season premieres, but no promises yet. It won't be an OT3 this time, but it will feature SuperCorp, some background AgentReign and another less common pairing that hopefully everyone will enjoy.


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